Girish Bhardwaj

Mr. Girish Bhardwaj has an academic background in Agricultural Engineering passed out from Pantnagar University. Mr. Bhardwaj has an illustrious career of nearly 4 decades in association with premier institutions including Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India), Action Aid, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). His specializations includes Participatory Development: Promoting participatory approaches in appraisal, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of natural resources management projects; Monitoring & Evaluation: Developing and establishing M&E system, conducting baseline studies, evaluation of projects and institutions and capacity building on M&E; Institutional Development: Building community institutions, capacity building of CBO and PRIs, developing systems and procedures, organisational evaluation, federating & networking, ensuring institutional sustainability, etc; Integrated Natural Resources Management: Planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, studies & research, policy influencing at different projects across the country; Capacity Building: Training needs assessment, design and conducting training programmes and developing training material on various developmental issues and Socio-economic Research: Studies and research on drinking water, natural resources management, health, etc. Mr. Bhardwaj worked closely with Dr. Robert Chambers and pioneered participatory systems during late eighties in the field of rural development, natural resource management, livelihood generation and institutional development with a view to ensure replicability and sustainability of development initiatives. Mr. Bhardwaj has a number of years of consulting experience with Government of India, several State Governments, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donor agencies and national/international aid agencies in development cooperation. He has been associated with a variety of clients as independent consultant, team member and team leader on various short/Long term assignments in the field of socio-economic research and participatory project management such as bottom-up-planning, implementation, monitoring & evaluation and impact assessment, process documentation, conflict resolution, ensuring social & gender equity, environmental sustainability, etc. in India and Afghanistan. Externally aided projects Mr. Bhardwaj was associated with include European Commission (EC), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) World Bank, International Food & Agriculture Department (IFAD), Royal Netherlands Embassy (RNE), Department for International Development (DFID), Intercooperation (Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation), DANIDA. Mr. Bhardwaj also associated as consultant with Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), Aid et Action, Wells for India (UK), Ford Foundation, Cordaid (The Netherlands), Canadian Centre for International Development, CARE (India), CCF, OXFAM, National Institute of Rural development (NIRD), AFC India Ltd., etc. Mr. Girish Bhardwaj associated with well known joint initiatives in development sector such as Joint Forest Management (JFM), participatory watershed/irrigation management, etc. through peoples’ institutions and cooperatives. He has been involved in developing strategies for effective communication, livelihoods promotion, natural resources management, environmental sustainability, etc. He was also a renowned resource person in training needs assessment, training design and capacity building of stakeholders.