Srishti Singh

Srishti is a PlanAdapt Fellow, based in Ahmedabad, India.

She is a climate change expert with 10 years of international experience in policy advocacy, community engagement, capacity-building and research. She has been involved in UNFCCC processes and actively worked with governments, academia, youth movements and civil society, to deliver complex multi-country programs related to Climate Adaptation, with a focus on the Asian region. She has been supporting multilateral policy discussions on adaptation and climate education based on extensive grassroots experience.

During 2015-18, Srishti led a UNFCCC award-winning initiative – Global Resilience Partnership Programme – to build the climate-resilience capacities of urban communities in 100+ slums of India, Nepal & Bangladesh (South Asia), funded by the USAID and Rockefeller Foundation. She created participatory knowledge tools, community-based toolkits and built capacities of women on climate change, vulnerability assessment & resilience planning. While the interactions with vulnerable communities provided her with an unmediated grasp of grassroots and gender issues, the project also expanded her horizon to strategically influence local and state-level policies and contribute to the case analysis research for disseminating the successful resilience model and lessons learnt (see case analysis report).

On the policy front, her interests include National Adaptation Plans, Global Goals on Adaptation, Action for Climate Empowerment and Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform. She believes in the power of young people and participatory approaches to policy-making and implementation. Furthermore, she has authored 20+ publications, including a global technical paper on Young People and Drivers and Barriers to Climate Adaptation Action and Global Case Studies on School-Led Adaptation and Climate Resilience in Schools and Educational Settings, in partnership with the Global Centre on Adaptation. At the national level, she conducted a study on Climate Governance and Water Policy with a focus on Participatory Approaches, among many others

Since the past 5 years, she has empowered youth from India for their meaningful engagement in climate policy and adaptation action. She has led multiple initiatives to build the capacity of the youth, including UNEP’s Tide Turners Plastic Challenge, which mobilized 0.35 million youth against pollution from single use plastics and climate action, and Local Conferences of Youth 2021, 2022 and the upcoming 2023. She served as the Country Contact Point for the 17th UN Climate Change Conference of Youth, and currently serves on the board of the Indian Youth Climate Network and National Focal Point for United International Federation of Youth on Water and Climate (UN1FY), established under the Water and Climate Coalition of the World Meteorological Organization. She has also authored a blog to reflect on her experiences with youth and how they could be engaged as key stakeholders in climate-related decision-making.

She holds a Master’s degree in Environment Management, with a focus on climate change. In addition, she has acquired certificates in Integrating Climate Adaptation Planning in Disaster Risk Reduction, Mastering National Adaptation Plans and Monitoring & Evaluation. She was also selected among the 10 international youth for the UN Climate Change ACE Hackathon 2022, where her team’s local energy solution won the challenge.

For more info, see Srishti’s LinkedIn page.