Skip to main content
IIED logo

Search form

  • Our work
    • Biodiversity
    • Communication
    • Climate change
    • Drylands and pastoralism
    • Economics
    • Energy
    • Fisheries
    • Food and agriculture
    • Forests
    • Gender
    • Governance
    • Green economy
    • Land acquisitions and rights
    • Law
    • Monitoring, evaluation and learning
    • Natural resource management
    • Policy and planning
    • Poverty
    • Sustainable markets
    • Urban
    • Water
    • Explore all our work
  • About
  • News and comment
  • Publications
People

Sheela Patel

Board of Trustees

Sheela is the founder and director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) India, which is based in Mumbai, and works in partnership with the National Slum Dweller Federation and Mahila Milan.
Full biography

Sheela Patel is the founder director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an NGO that has been working since 1984 to support community organisations of the urban poor in their efforts to access secure housing and basic amenities and seek their right to the city. 

Patel is widely recognised – nationally and internationally – for seeking urgent attention to the issues of urban poverty, housing and infrastructure onto the radar of governments, bilateral and international agencies, foundations and other organizations. She is a funder amongst many of Slum Dwellers International, a transnational social movement of the urban poor, whose board she previously chaired.

Sheela Patel's picture

Sheela Patel's blog posts

Woman walking on a pipe with garbage around.

Call to international funders: address grassroots organisations’ priorities, not yours

Blog, Oct 2020
women distributing counting eggs

New narratives for a 'new normal'

Blog, Jul 2020
Dharavi slum, Mumbai, India (Photo: Akshay Mahajan, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Data that supports local development

Blog, Sep 2016
Washing in Kolkata. Urban poor groups must engage with city government and utility companies in order to become drivers for change (Photo: Wolfgang Sterneck, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Can global funds be accountable at the local level?

Blog, Aug 2016
Ongoing monitoring of communal toilets has helped to improve design: here, smaller toilets for children are included in adult toilet blocks. Previously children's facilities were in separate buildings and were frequently left uncleaned (Photo: SPARC)

How India's slum and pavement dwellers made sanitation affordable

Blog, Apr 2015
Women are gathered around a paper with squares on it talking.

Why enumeration counts: documenting by the undocumented

Blog, May 2012
  • Contact us
  • People
  • Jobs and internships
  • Blogs
  • Events
  • Media centre
  • About
  • Our strategy
  • Our sites and networks
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy policy
  • Publications

IIED's mission is to build a fairer, more sustainable world, using evidence, action and influence in partnership with others. We link local priorities to global challenges, and our 2019-2024 strategy details how we will Make Change Happen

Sign up to our newsletters

International Institute for Environment and Development, 235 High Holborn, Holborn, London WC1V 7LE, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 3463 7399

back to top