Resilience and green growth:

Moving the needle on post-pandemic climate action

Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.

Amal-Lee Amin is on a mission towards sustainable development. She works to catalyze impact investing for Africa and South Asia’s zero carbon & climate-resilient development and leverages her expertise to drive innovative policy and financing solutions to deliver the SDGs.

Amar Bhattacharya is senior fellow at the Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings Institution. His focus areas are the global economy, development finance, global governance, and the links between climate and development. From April 2007 until September 2014 he was Director of the Group of 24, an intergovernmental group of developing country Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. In that capacity he led the work program of the Group, supported the deliberations of the Ministers, and was the principal point of interface with other organizations including the G20. He has therefore been an active participant in the global economic discussions and a key representative of the views of developing countries.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is an expert in the adaptation and mitigation of indigenous peoples to climate change. As a member of the Mbororo people in Chad and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), she advocates for the greater inclusion of indigenous peoples, and their knowledge and traditions in the global movement to fight the effects of climate change. Ibrahim’s work with indigenous communities at the local and global level gives a voice to the voiceless, forcing governments and the private sector to listen. Her advocacy for Indigenous communities and her commitment to integrating Indigenous knowledge with Western science to create a healthier planet has won her numerous honors, including the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award, appointment as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate, a member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues and Advisory Committee to the Secretary General’s 2019 Climate Action Summit, and Conservation International Senior Indigenous Fellow. In 2019, Time Magazine listed her as one of fifteen women championing action on climate change and her TEDWomen talk will be released March 28.

Kumayl Khaleeli is an entrepreneur and the current CEO of Zephyr Power Limited, a renewable energy company in Pakistan. Under his leadership, Zephyr has become a 50-megawatt wind Independent Power Project in Gharo, Sindh.

Prior to Zephyr, Kumayl worked with Sonnedix Japan, a solar photovoltaic developer and IPP with a target to acquire and build a minimum capacity of 350-megawatt of solar power in Japan. He has also worked with financial, development, and technology partners to develop renewable energy technologies and projects, and to secure financing to build IPPs in emerging markets. He has over 7 years of institutional investment management and investment banking experience, and more than 10 years’ experience in renewable energy.

Dr. Jale Samuwai is the Climate Finance Advisor for Oxfam in the Pacific, and is currently responsible for covering the 10 Pacific countries in which Oxfam have a program footprint. He holds a PhD in Climate Change from the University of the South Pacific (USP) and is the first graduate from USP to attain this qualification. His PhD thesis specifically looks at climate financing in the Pacific region. In addition, he has published 8 peer reviewed articles on sustainable development issues in the Pacific in ranked journals outlets and has also written 3 technical reports on climate change/finance related issues in the region.

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