Meera Mehta

Center Head and Principal Researcher

Meera Mehta is a Professor Emeritus at CEPT University and the Center Head and Principal Researcher of the Center for Water and Sanitation. She has over 45 years of experience in water, urban development and infrastructure finance. Her experience spans countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

She served as the Director of the School of Planning at CEPT University in 1992 before joining USAID’s FIRE-D Project in India and later the World Bank and its Water and Sanitation Program in Africa. She has consulted widely for national and international agencies, including UNICEF, World Bank, ADB, WaterAid, HIC, Government of the Netherlands. She has written widely and published papers on housing, urban development, water and sanitation and financing. She is currently one of the Editors for the IWA’s WASH development journal.

In 2008, she spearheaded, jointly with Dinesh Mehta, the Performance Assessment System (PAS) Project at CEPT University, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She leads the projects with BMGF and other funders at the Center. She also contributes to courses at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University.

She is currently a board member at IRC, a global not-for-profit organization driving resilient WASH systems across the world through research and advocacy. She was a Stockholm-based inter-governmental organization Global Water Partnership (GWP) board member. She was a member of the working group for the WHO-UNICEF post-2015 deliberations for water supply and sanitation. She has also been a member of various national and international Technical Committees related to water and sanitation.

She has studied Architecture and Urban Planning and has a PhD in Economics.

Dinesh Mehta

Center Head and Principal Researcher

Dinesh Mehta is a Professor Emeritus at CEPT University and the Center Head and Principal Researcher of the Center for Water and Sanitation. He has over four decades of experience in urban policy, urban planning and management in Asia and Africa.

He was the Director of the School of Planning at CEPT University in Ahmedabad from 1984 to 1992 and later the Director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India, from 1992-1997. He also served as the global head of the Urban Management Programme at UN-HABITAT in Nairobi from 2000 to 2006. In 2007, Dinesh returned to CEPT to pursue research and teaching. He teaches courses in urban finance, infrastructure and development planning at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University.

He leads the Performance Assessment System (PAS) Project and other projects with BMGF and other funders at the Center. He also contributes to courses at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University. In 2013, Professor Mehta was awarded the IWA (International Water Association)’s Development Solutions Award in recognition of his contribution to research and practice in Water. In 2017 became a fellow of IWA and Chair of their specialist group on water and sanitation in developing countries.

He has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering from IIT Madras, India.