Aniruddha Dasgupta

Global Director, WRI Ross Center For Sustainable Cities

Aniruddha (Ani) Dasgupta is the Global Director of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, WRI’s program that galvanizes action to help cities grow more sustainably and improve quality of life in developing countries around the world.

Ani also serves as WRI Director of the Coalition for Urban Transitions, Special Initiative of the New Climate Economy (NCE), a global partnership of eight economic and policy research institutes, of which WRI is the Managing Partner.

Prior to joining WRI, Ani served at the Director of Knowledge and Learning at the World Bank. In 2010, he helped develop the World Bank’s first knowledge strategy. Before leading the Bank’s knowledge work, he coordinated the Bank’s internal reform program as the director of the Reform Secretariat. Prior to these corporate responsibilities, Ani spent the majority of this career in the operational part of the Bank including five years in the Jakarta office as the head of infrastructure.

An urban professional, Ani has dedicated himself for over 15 years to international development with a focus on the urbanization, urban environment and infrastructure. He has done extensive operational work in Asia and Eastern Europe as an technical expert centered on community based development, urban environment, disaster management, solid waste management, water supply and sanitation. He was extensively involved in the post tsunami reconstruction of Aceh as an advisor to the government on housing and infrastructure reconstruction and as the head of the Bank’s housing and infrastructure team.

Ani holds master's degrees in City Planning and Architecture, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His PhD work, at the planning school at MIT, focused on services for urban poor. He received a bachelor's degree in Architecture with an emphasis on low Income Housing from the School of Planning and Architecture in India.

He has researched and written widely on Community Driven and Community Based development, urban poverty in East Asia, and more recently on Knowledge and Learning for development.