Neha Rai
Senior researcher, Climate Change
Neha Rai specialises in public policy analysis, urban and regional planning, climate finance and governance, and socioeconomic and environmental impact assessments. She studies the political economy of climate adaptation interventions, and is currently working on developing a framework for tracking adaptation and measuring development (TAMD).
- Public policy analysis
- Urban and regional planning
- Socio-technical transitions in water and energy: multi-regime dynamics
- Impact assessments: socioeconomic and environmental
- Quantitative survey design & analysis
- Participatory methodologies
- Climate finance and governance
- Measuring and evaluation (M&E)
- Political economy assessment of adaptation interventions
- Tracking adaptation and measuring development
- Research fellow at Sussex Energy Group, SPRU, University of Sussex (2010-2012)
- Researcher at UNU-Merit, The Netherlands (2008)
- Manager (Urban Planning Projects) IL&FS Ecosmart, New Delhi, India (2007)
- Sociologist and urban planner at SENES (Specialists in Energy Nuclear and Environmental sciences), India (2005-2007)
English (fluent), Hindi (fluent), Urdu (fluent), and Bangla (basic)
Neha Rai's blog posts
Neha Rai, senior climate researcher at IIED, says the Green Climate Fund needs to reform its decision-making processes – and there is no more time to waste.
Countries need to know whether their efforts to adapt to climate change are working. The first in a new series of webinars discussed approaches that can help governments assess their progress.
As the Green Climate Fund's board meets to decide on a second round of spending it needs to prioritise initiatives that will reach the climate vulnerable, rather than large-scale business as usual investments.
The 10th community-based adaptation conference culminated in Dhaka last week with a strong message to engage communities in climate change action. This implies a greater role for local governments and communities in determining how climate-related decisions are made.
As the Green Climate Fund meets to select projects for funding, is the current funding criteria prioritising a business as usual approach?
IIED is co-hosting a regional forum with UNDP in Jakarta, Indonesia, to share learning and experience on making sure climate finance works for sustainable development.
The Green Climate Fund is ready to get going, thanks to a successful meeting held in South Korea recently, but there is still some work to do, and there are still no firm pledges [PDF] from developed countries in spite of recent progress.
The UN climate change convention's Green Climate Fund (GCF), aims to help countries adopt "transformational" pathways to low carbon, climate resilient development. Its 6th board meeting last week in Bali yielded mixed results for the world's most poor and climate vulnerable countries.
As developing countries transition towards low carbon economies, governments must take difficult decisions about how they should scale up their renewable energy sectors. Initiatives, such as the Scaling-up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP), aim to catalyse investments in renewables, often with outside support from the private sector. But they face tough choices between investing in proven or novel low-carbon technologies, and between large-scale and small-scale approaches.
Neha Rai's blog posts with other authors
The main impacts of climate change are being felt by poor families, which means that poor women and men must be at the centre of the climate change finance debate.