DR. MADHU VERMA

Brief Bio

Dr. Madhu Verma is the Chief Economist at the World Resources Institute (WRI) at Delhi, the India office of one of the leading environmental research organisation of the World (www.wri.org). She specialises in the Economic Valuation of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services, Green Accounting/Gross Ecosystem Product, Conservation & Environmental Finance & Incentive Based Mechanisms. Before joining WRI in 2019, she worked as Professor of Environment and Developmental Economics at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), an MoEFCC organisation for 25 years and prior to which at the Bhopal University as Senior Faculty & at the Department of Agriculture as an Economist, Govt pf MP. She mainly does action and policy research and has 37 years of professional experience o working with many national and international institutes, Ministries (MoEFCC, MoSPI, MoF, MoRD, MOHR), Forestry & Finance Commissions of India, United Nations bodies (UNEP, UNDP, UNSDA), World Bank, ADB and several funding other agencies. She has been interacting and advising several Corporate firms, industries and federations on ‘Economics of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services’ and creation of economic instruments.

A Biological Sciences graduate and M.A., M. Phil in Economics with specialisation in Regional Planning & Economic Growth and Ph.D. in Industrial Economics from Bhopal University; she has done her post-doctoral research at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and University of California, Berkeley, USA with the EMCaB program Fellowship supported by the World Bank(2001). She is a Fulbright Fellow (2012); Leadership in Environment & Development (LEAD) Fellow (2007), Indian Society of Ecological Economics (INSEE) Fellow (2019) and currently on the Board of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) ; Member-Scientific & Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) on Green Accounting, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI); Chairperson, Technical Committee on Wetlands of Delhi, Govt of Delhi, India; Expert Member, Committee on Vision Plan for Project Tiger, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) Govt. of India.

Contribution to International and National Reports: She has been an expert/team member/contributing author/ lead author in several international reports like the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (2004-06); The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB) Reports(2009-12); and the Global Biodiversity Assessment Report of IPBES (2013-2019); she has more than 40 publications and more than 45 project reports to her credit and led many influential projects for several Ministries, Commissions and State Governments like (i) Revision of NPV & Cost Benefit Analysis of Forest Diversion in India, (ii) Economic Valuation of Tiger Reserves in India (iii) Economic Valuation & Green Accounting of Forests of Himachal, Rajsathan, Uttrakhand and Jharkhand States and North Eastern States; contributed to the introduction of allocation of increased budget for Forestry Sector for 13^th & Formula for 14^th Finance Commission and for Foresters, Climate Change and Environment sectors for the 15^th Finance Commissions etc. to name a few. She has intensively worked across Mountain States on India and have helped them through the India Mountain Initiative (IMI) in preparing the case of ‘Green Bonus’ for the them.

She has developed several Guidance Manuals like (i) Developing a Toolkit for Valuing Regulating Services for UNEP; (ii) Valuation of Tiger & Snow Leopard landscapes for Global Tiger Forum and World Bank. Her work is widely quoted across the globe (3137 Google Scholar citations). At WRI, she is leading the Flasgship study on on ‘Approaches for Doubling Farmers Income in India - Agroecological System based Considerations’ using TEEB for AgriFood Framework wherein I am looking at the entire value chain following the business biodiversity model and evolving work on the ‘Economics of Nature Based Solutions’’ and ‘Oceans Ecosystems’ for Biodiversity conservation through cost effective measures. I have been part of the consultation process on business and biodiversity of TEEB & initiative of Indian government and business federations and have worked such processes for forestry and agro-ecological systems. Recently published a joint paper in Nature sustainability on Global Review of Ecological Fiscal Transfers. Currently engaged in developing Framework for Assessing Gross Environment Product (GEP) of various States .

Work Experience in International TEEB, CBD & IPBES Platforms on Economics of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services :

1. 1. The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB) Reports (2009-12)- Expert Member & Lead Author : Chapter 5 in TEEB D0 on Valuation Methods and Chapter 5: Rewarding benefits through payments and markets TEEB D1 for Policy Makers. Instrumental in developing the TEEB India study proposal.
2. 2. Regional research for CBD Secretariat on the benefits and costs of meeting the Aichi Targets – Asia for the WCMC/GHK research team, the High Level Panel, (2013-14).
3. 3. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Reports (2013-2019) - Expert Member and Lead Author: (i) As one of the co-author in Kate A. Brauman et.al. Global trends in nature’s contributions to people in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). December 22, 2020 117 (51) 32799-32805. (ii) the Global Biodiversity Assessment Report – Chapter on Natures Contribution to People (2019).(iii) As one of the co-author in Pascual,U. et.al. as one of the co-authour (2017). The value of nature’s contributions to people: the IPBES approach. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volumes 26–27, June 2017; (iv) As one of the co-author in Sandra Diaz et.al.. The IPBES Conceptual Framework — connecting nature and people. ARTICLE in CURRENT OPINION IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 14:1–16 · JUNE 2015.
4. Current Engagement in IPBES: Lead Author in ongoing Business and Biodiversity Assessment & Expert in 8^th Plenary session of IPBES (June 2021).