Sushila Pandit

Sushila is a PlanAdapt Fellow from Nepal, based in Canterbury, UK.

Sushila is a climate & resilience professional with over 12 years of experience in climate change, disaster risk management and building resilience. Her core area of expertise lies in the intersectional approach to vulnerability reduction & climate resilience, people-centred locally-led adaptation, promoting indigenous & local knowledge, forecast-based anticipatory action, nature-based solutions, participatory approach for knowledge co-creation and integration of gender & social inclusion on the work she does.

She is interested in working at the interface of policy-practice-research in and around locally-led adaptation, anticipatory action, local & indigenous knowledge, policy and governance. She is a multi-award & fellowship-winning climate activist with extensive experience in leading & delivering transformative climate resilience projects & programs. Previously, she was associated with national NGOs (ENPHO, Team of Helping Hands for Healthy Environment) in Nepal, UNFCCC Bonn, and INGOs (Practical Action South Asia regional office, CARE & Mercy Corps ) in Nepal focusing on disaster management, climate adaptation and resilience in and around policy and advocacy, providing technical assistance and program management. Her work includes programme design, implementation, supporting monitoring & evaluation systems, capacity building, training and mentoring, policy advice and advocacy, networking and communication. Apart from the designed work of projects and program activities, she also led an innovative pilot project on forecast-based anticipatory action through cash-based humanitarian response in a flood disaster in Nepal.  She also got engaged with multi-media platforms from performing in street drama, radio program presenter, guest editor in a magazine to direction of a short movie to raising awareness of climate change.

She served as a lecturer at the Institute of Crisis Management, Samaritan Academy and K&K International College, Tribhuvan University in Nepal on Global Climate Change and Sustainability in MA Courses on Crisis Management and Rural Development. She is also a founder and a member of the Organisation of Women Scientists in Nepal (OWSN), a national chapter of the Organisation of Women in Science in the Developing World (OWSD), Italy & Together for Human & Environment in Nepal which works for environment & human security issues. She contributed to a book chapter for Springer and wrote books on climate change, disaster management, and resilience in addition to having presented papers and posters at national and international conferences.

Sushila holds an MSc Degree in Environmental Sciences specializing in climate change from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and BSc Degree in Environment Science as well as a BSc in Botany from the same university. Sushila is currently a Ph.D. researcher at the School of Politics & International Relations at the University of Kent, UK researching climate adaptation policy & governance focusing on the implementation of those policies. She attended a short course on food security in changing climate by Wageningen University under an OKP fellowship, another short course on ecosystem services from the University of Geneva & summer school on politics, ontology & ecology by the University of Pisa. She also participated in the Post-Graduate Researcher Students (PGRs)Training Series by the University of East Anglia, UK.

For more info, please see Sushila’s LinkedIn Profile and  ResearchGate Page.