Meera Mehta

Center Head and Principal Researcher

Meera Mehta is CRDF Professor Emeritus and the Head of the Center for Water and Sanitation. She also contributes to courses at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University.

She has over 45 years of experience in water, urban development, and infrastructure finance. Her experience spans across countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She served as the Director of the School of Planning at CEPT University 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 for many national and international agencies, including UNICEF, the 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 a member of the steering committee of the National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance. She has been a member of the International Advisory Board for the UKRI and GCRF-funded project for Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub, University of Newcastle, since 2020. She is a member of the Project Advisory Board for the USAID-funded Global project on “Urban resilience by building partnerships and applying new evidence in water, sanitation and Hygiene (Urban WASH)” – 2022 to 2026.

She was a board member at IRC, a global not-for-profit organization driving resilient WASH systems, and on the Steering Committee of the Stockholm-based inter-governmental organization Global Water Partnership (GWP). She was a member of the working group of the WHO-UNICEF for post-2015 deliberations for water supply and sanitation. She has been a member of various national and international Technical Committees related to water and sanitation. She was one of the Editors of the IWA’s WASH development journal.

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 and Head of the Center for Water and Sanitation. He has over four decades of experience in urban policy, urban planning management, WASH, and climate, in Asia and Africa.

Dr Mehta was involved in global urban policy and dialogue as the head of the Urban Management Programme at the UN-Habitat headquarters in Nairobi. He also contributed significantly to urban policy formulation by the Government of India, while he was a Director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India. Dr Mehta was also the Director of the School of Planning at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India during 1986-1992. In 2013, Professor Mehta was awarded the International Water Association’s Development Solutions Award in recognition of his contribution to research and practice in Water. In 2017 he became a fellow of IWA and Chair of their specialist group on water and sanitation in developing countries

Dr Mehta has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering, from IIT, Madras, India.