Our Team

Anil Pokhrel is the Chief Executive at the National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Authority, Government of Nepal. He also serves as the Member Secretary of the National Executive Committee headed by Hon. Minister of Home Affairs and the National Council for DRRM headed by Rt. Hon. Prime Minister. In a career spanning more than two decades, Mr. Pokhrel has gained extensive experience in DRRM, climate change adaptation and water management with Nepali and international NGOs, UN agencies, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. Mr. Pokhrel previously worked as Sr. Risk & Adaptation Specialist at Plan8 Risk Consulting.  Prior to that, he served as DRM Specialist at the ADB and the World Bank and as Research Associate at Overseas Development Institute and Institute for Social and Environmental Transition. Mr. Pokhrel was trained as a Civil Engineer at Tribhuvan University (1994-1997) and in Environmental Management -specialization in water science, policy and management- at Yale University (2004-2006) under a Fulbright fellowship.

Prof. Upreti is the founder General Secretary and the current President of Nepal Centre for Disaster Management (NCDM) and the former Chairperson of DPNet-Nepal. By profession he is a geologist. Prof. Upreti is an Academician of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology. He is the former Head of Central Department of Geology and Department of Geology at Tri- Chandra Campus, and also the former Dean of Institute of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University. He is a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and Foreign Fellow of the Zambia Academy of Sciences. He was an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and a visiting Professor at the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing. Prof. Upreti was a professor (2015-2021) and Head, Department of Geology at the School of Mines, The University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia. He also taught at Arba Minch University in Ethiopia. During his nearly 47 years of professional career, Prof. Upreti has done extensive geological research in the Nepal Himalaya and authored and edited many books and published over 90 research papers in national and international journals. Prof. Upreti was a visiting professor in the universities and Institutes of China, France, Germany, India. Japan, Ethiopia and Zambia. He has attended, chaired and delivered keynote and invited lectures in many universities, international seminars and conferences. Prof. Upreti has received many national and international prestigious awards including the Gorkha Dakshin Bahu, Mahendra Vidhya Bhusan medals etc. and also awarded with the International Award - C.N.R. Rao Prize for Scientific Research from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) for his research contribution in the Nepal Himalaya. He was awarded with the Honorary Fellowship of the Nepal Geological Society and the Geological Society of America. Prof. Upreti’s main research interests are in structural geology and tectonics, Engineering geology, paleoseismology, geohazards and disaster management.

Dr. Mandira Singh Shrestha is a Programme Coordinator of Climate Services initiative at ICIMOD. She has over 25 years of research experience that cover broad areas of climate services, disaster risk reduction and water resources management. Her research interest center on transboundary flood forecasting and monitoring, application of satellite based products, early warning systems and end user engagement for reduced risks and increased resilience. Her current research focuses on localizing climate services for Agriculture and Tourism, communication of early warning to the last mile and institutional capacity building in Future Climate Change Projections. She coordinated the development of a web based regional flood information system in the Himalayan region where the countries share real-time data and information for flood risk reduction thereby strengthening regional cooperation. Ms. Shrestha holds a Doctor of Engineering from the University of Kyoto, Japan, Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA and a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Pitambar Prasad Acharya is one of the pioneers of poverty reduction initiatives at the grass root level in Nepal. Mr. Acharya is a graduate on Commerce and Law from TU, Nepal, and Post Graduate on Regional development and planning from Israel. He has successfully established two microfinance banks in Nepal namely, Deprosc Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited (2001) and NADEP Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited (2015). He has served as a Founder Chair of DEPROSC-Nepal for years. He has given his leadership in Microfinance Association of Nepal (MIFAN) in addition to Development Project Service Centre (DEPROSC Nepal) itself. In addition, he is serving as Vice Chair at Centre for Microfinance (CMF). He has successfully accomplished the fourth Microfinance Summit in Nepal under this chairmanship. Mr. Acharya has served for more than 20 years in Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal up to the capacity of Zonal Manager. Mr. Acharya has wide range of exposure and meaningful participation at the national, regional and international level seminar, dialogue and conferences. He has led number of research and studies conducted for various donors and international agencies. Mr. Acharya conceived DEPROSC-Nepal twenty-nine years back with the notion of bringing excluded, poor, minorities, women and dalits, marginalized groups, particularly living in rural parts of Nepal into the development mainstream that giving rise to their livelihoods, social development and self-dignity.

Mr. Neupane has been working in public governence processes, is expert in designing, organizing, conducting training and workshops, developing guidelines, manuals and drafting by-laws. Also working on designing and implementing public private partnership projects in federal, provincial and local units. He has 32 years of experience in the field of good governance, central, provincial and local development of government business.and is experienced in planning and development of monitoring indicators, socio- economic empowerment process. He has worked as the Head of conflict management, peace and stability, immigration management, narcotic control authority of Nepal, disaster management of Nepal and as a principal seceretary of provincial government, land reform, co- operatives, poverty alleviation and good governance.