Dr Ruchi Pant

Head of Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity, UNDP India

Dr Ruchi Pant is Head of Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India. She has over 30 years’ of experience working on key issues including agro-biodiversity, natural resource management, land restoration, biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity finance.

At UNDP, she leads the development and implementation of programmes contributing towards achieving India’s commitments under key Multilateral Environment Agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals. She is currently leading the India chapter of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative, UNDP’s global flagship programme to catalyse the mobilisation of financial resources for biodiversity conservation.
Dr Pant holds a Doctorate in Protection and Promotion of Indigenous Plant Breeder Rights looking at legal and non-legal mechanisms for the protection of traditional knowledge systems associated with bio-genetic resources. She is passionate about the revival of traditional knowledge systems and customary laws about biodiversity and genetic resource conservation. Before UNDP, she worked, and led, at many conservation and development organisations including WWF, ATREE and the International Institute of Environment and Development. She also served as the Ford Foundation Visiting Law Fellow at the Boalt Law School, University of California, Berkeley in 1994.