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.

Mr. Pitambar Aryal actively involved with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and UNDP for more than 25 years domestically with the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), Canadian Red Cross, and UNDP as well as internationally for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Danish Red Cross. He had served in leadership/management roles as well as technical advisory roles in different contexts ranging from development to crisis settings.

His major areas of expertise include emergency/crisis management, climate risk management/ disaster risk management, disaster response/recovery, community development, community based health/ WASH and organizational development. Recently, he has been working as the Faculty for Humanitarian Assistant at Institute of Crisis Management, Dhumbarahi Kathmandu since January 2022. Before undertaking this responsibility, he was Secretary General for Nepal Red Cross Society for around two years, a largest humanitarian organization in Nepal.

Mr. Aryal also took a responsibility of Health Programe Manager at Canadian Red Cross Society based in Nepal. He had managed the Disaster and Crisis Preparedness Response and Recovery programs (3rd September 2018 to 2nd May 2019) at the IFRC MENA regional office Beirut, Lebanon as the Acting Head of DCPRR unit. He was also involved with IFRC as the head of country office for Yemen for around four years. In addition to his other previous roles with UNDP, Danish Red Cross and NRCS; he deployed by IFRC as a Health Delegate in Afghanistan and as a Regional Coordinator for the South Asia Red Cross and Red Crescent Network on HIV/AIDS.

Specific to Nepal, Mr. Aryal worked with Nepal Red Cross Society for nearly 16 years in key management positions including as Director for Youth Red Cross Department, Health Service Department, Disaster Management Department and Secretary General.

Trained as Field Assessment Coordination Team (FACT), Regional Disaster Response Team, Public Health in Emergencies, Health Emergency in Large Population and HITs and other national and international health programme management as well as disaster risk management courses. Mr. Aryal has attended several national and international workshops/conferences and made presentations, he is a good trainer, facilitator, and manager. He prefers to be called a humanitarian practitioner/professional.  He has published scientific articles in national and international peer reviewed journals in the humanitarian field.   He has completed Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH) from Netherlands, Post Graduate Diploma in Disaster Management (PGDDM) and Master's Degree in Sociology (MA) from New Delhi, India and Master's Degree in Health Education (Med) from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu Nepal. He has been pursuing a PhD program from India since 2022.

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.

Mr. Thule Rai is a retired Additional Inspector General of Police (AIGP), who served a total of thirty years in Nepal Police.  Along with the core policing functions, he treasures an ample of experiences in the field of DRR, particularly in Preparedness and Response. Beside the DRR, he holds a wide range of experiences in managing crises/critical incidents during his active service with Nepal Police. He served as the chief of Operations Department, Crime Investigation Department, Human Resource and Administration Department, and National Police Academy of Nepal Police. During his active service in Nepal Police, he put several years in enhancing capacity building of police personnel and other professional responders related to DRR. He also has a solid experience in handling the mega/devastating disasters in Nepal. He served as an overall in-charge of Search and Rescue Operations on behalf of Nepal Police, Dead Body Management of unidentified victims, Data Base of Death, and Missing persons during the Gorkha Earthquake, 2015. He feels satisfied in having established the dedicated Disaster Management Units at various levels in Nepal Police, which exists at federal and all province levels at present.

He holds Masters Degree in Economics (TU, Nepal) and Post Graduation Diploma in Disaster Management (IGNOU, India). His knowledge and skills have been enriched by having academic degree and several DRR related Training Courses, Workshops and Seminars  nationally and internationally. He served multiple occasions as the Instructor, Coordinator and Monitor of various courses/programs in Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand for national emergency responders in various DRR related programs including the Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER), a USAID/OFDA or BHA supported program in South Asia and South East Asia. Beside DRR, he has the experience of working in multi-national/multi-cultural environment as he has served in three different UN Peacekeeping Missions during the crisis times; namely UNGCI in Kurdistan - Northern Iraq (1998 - 1999), UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone (2002-2003) and UNAMID in Darfur, Sudan (2008-2009), mostly engaged in the field of capacity building activities. He has also served as the Capacity Building Advisor/Rapid Capacity Assessment Expert with DFID/ MIPP Project under UNOPS in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic and the Consultant-Security and Justice Adviser to SAHAJ Program under International Alert, Nepal. Currently, he serves as the Chairperson of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Services (DREAMS) Foundation Pvt. Ltd., based in Lalitpur, Nepal.