The International Institute for Environment and Development is a global leader in sustainable development.
"Our mission is to build a fairer, more sustainable world, using evidence, action and influence in partnership with others."
As an independent international research organisation, we are specialists in linking local to global. In Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Middle East and the Pacific, we work with some of the world's most vulnerable people to ensure they have a say in the policy arenas that most closely affect them — from village councils to international conventions.
Through close collaboration with partners at the grassroots, we make our research and advocacy relevant to their needs and alive to their realities.
Partnerships are key to the way we work at IIED: they keep our approach fresh and dynamic round the world. By forging alliances with individuals and organisations ranging from urban slumdwellers to global institutions, IIED ensures that national and international policy reflects the agendas of marginalised people.
For more, see our Partnerships page.
We also advise governments, business and international development agencies and publish widely.
At a time when swift change is the norm, IIED finds solutions to the shifting array of challenges by focusing on five big issues: Climate Change, Governance, Human Settlements, Natural Resources and Sustainable Markets.
Our roots
IIED was launched in 1971 by renowned economist and policy advisor Barbara Ward, making it one of the very first organisations to link environment with development.
The institute has played key roles in the Stockholm Conference of 1972, the Brundtland Commission of 1987, the 1992 Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, and is now helping to shape the global debate on climate change.
IIED in depth
To explore some of the far-reaching work we do to support sustainable patterns of global development, see Doorway to a green economy: IIED annual report 2009-10
IIED has also drafted several documents illustrating our ways of working and how we engage with research participants, research partners and business. You can also access our current institutional strategy.
Board of Trustees
Maureen O'Neil, Chair, Canada
Alan Jenkins, Vice Chair, United Kingdom
Julio Berdeguè, Mexico
Teresa Fogelberg, The Netherlands
Timothy Hornsby, United Kingdom
Laila Iskandar, Egypt
Frank Kirwan, UK (Treasurer)
Lailai Li, China
Anna Maembe, Tanzania
Pancho Ndebele, South Africa
Sheela Patel, India
Ian Rushby, UK
Francisco Sagasti, Peru
Henrik Secher Marcussen, Denmark
Maureen O’Neil is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. Previous positions include President of the International Development Research Centre, Interim President of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, President of the North-South Institute, and Deputy Minister of Citizenship for the Government of Ontario.
Ms. O’Neil is a member of the International Board of Governors of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and chair of the Advisory Council on Corporate Social Responsibility of Canada’s Export Development Corporation. She is also a Fellow of the School of Policy Studies of Queen’s University. She has been a member and/or Chair of numerous Boards, including: the Board of Governors of Carleton University (Chair); the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA); the Policy Advisory Group of the UK Department for International Development; the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut; the Markle Foundation’s Global Digital Opportunity Initiative; the World Economic Forum’s Digital Divide Supervisory Committee (co-chair); the Advisory Board to the Minister of Foreign Affairs; the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Chair); the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (Chair); and the Institute for Women, Law and Development. She has also represented Canada on the UN Commission on the Status of Women and on OECD committees, and has been a member of the UN Committee for Development Planning and the Board of the UN Research Institute for Social Development.
Ms. O’Neil has a BA in Sociology from Carleton University and Honorary LLDs from Carleton University and Wilfrid Laurier University.
Alan Jenkins is Chairman of Eversheds LLP and Eversheds International, a major international law firm headquartered in London, and trustee and former Chairman of the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development.
He is responsible for Eversheds International strategic development. He was formerly managing partner of Frere Cholmeley Bischoff, before its merger with Eversheds. As a lawyer, he has practised in the fields of commercial litigation, international arbitration and professional negligence and has worked on many high profile cases. He has dealt with various governments, agencies and state owned bodies around the world.
He was Head of the Environmental Law Group at Frere Cholmely Bischoff. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce and the Society of Advanced Legal Studies and he has spoken and written on a variety of topics. He has part written International & Commerce Fraud (published by Sweet & Maxwell - 2001) and “Dossiers - Arbitration, Money Laundering, Corruption and Fraud” published by the ICC Institute of World Business Law (2003). He was educated at New College Oxford.
Julio Berdeguè, Mexico
Julio Berdegué is Principal Researcher at Rimisp-Latin American Center for Rural Development (Santiago, Chile).He holds a Ph.D. in Social Science, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Julio currently serves in the Board of Trustees of CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) and as member of the Program Advisory Committee of the ISNAR Program at IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). He chaired the Board of Directors of the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion (CONDESAN). Some of his recent assignments include participation in the preparation of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008: “Agriculture for Development”, and in the Independent External Evaluation of FAO. His recent work includes research, policy advice and capacity development on territorial rural development; on market restructuring and inclusion and exclusion of small farmers and rural entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on the supermarket sector; and on rural non-farm agricultural employment. He also has extensive research and development experience on learning and innovation systems in rural areas, and on small farmers’ economic organizations.
Teresa Fogelberg, The Netherlands
As GRI's Deputy Chief Executive Teresa engages in strategic external relationships with business, governments, civil society and other stakeholders. Teresa started her career as an anthropologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She has spent many years in development organizations, such as ILO, USAID, and Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in several countries in West Africa, where she specialized in gender issues and famine-early warning systems. She has thirteen years’ experience across various managerial positions at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including Head of the Department for Women and Development, and the Research and Higher Education Department. In those positions Teresa contributed to the development of socio-economic impact assessment tools, and chaired the OECD Working Party on Women and Development and sat on the Oversight Committee of the (multi stakeholder) Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Immediately prior to joining GRI, she worked for the Netherlands Ministry of Environment, where she was Head of the Climate Change and Industry department, and Special Advisor on International Environmental Affairs. She was also Head of the Netherlands Delegation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , in the period that the Netherlands had the Presidency of the UNFCCC and managed to successfully close the deal on the Kyoto Protocol. In that position she worked closely with the corporate sector. In 2002, Teresa acted as Executive Assistant to the Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary General for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and was in charge of private sector involvement in the Summit. Teresa sits on the board of several sustainable development organizations. She is a Dutch National of Scandinavian origin, and is fluent in English, Swedish and French.
Timothy Hornsby is Chair of the National Lottery Commission, responsible for regulating Camelot and managing the competition for the new licence: Chairman of the Horniman Museum, which has a major collection of natural history specimens, ethnography and musical instruments: Chair of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association: and Chair of the Harkness Fellows Association, devoted to Anglo-American relations. He was Chief Executive of the National Lottery Charities Board, Chief Executive of the Royal Borough of Kingston, Director General of the Nature Conservancy Council and before that held a series of posts in the civil service, including Director of Rural Affairs and Conservation. He is a Director of the Charles Darwin Trust, a member of the Parliamentary Champions Awards Steering Committee, and a Trustee of FIELD. He read history at Oxford University, and at Harvard and Columbia, and subsequently held academic posts in the United States and at Oxford.
Lailai Iskandar Kamel is a community development consultant and trainer who has extensive experience in working with government agencies, the private sector and NG projects and programs in the Middle East. These have encompassed the fields of gender, education and development, environmental projects, child labor programs and governance issues. She was a consultant to the Minister of Environment on solid waste management issues in Egypt. She is also a researcher and social development consultant to a variety of international agencies and works on both grass roots issues and policy matters. Community and Institutional Development was awarded the Schwab Social Entrepreneurship prize for the Arab Region at the World Economic Forum in May of 2006O’s. Her 25 years’ experience is reflected in her research work and publications. She has designed and implemented numerous projects which have involved a large network of stakeholders on the national and international levels. Her experience in institutional building, network creation, institution of public-private partnerships, and technology transfer encompasses the field of non-formal education, primary health care, community environmental issues, crafts, literacy, gender, etc . She is an international speaker and consultant to international development agencies and has served as a jury to UNESCO’s International Literacy Prize and is Unesco’s UNLD Resource Person for the Arab region (2005-2007).
Frank Kirwan’s background is in strategy development and change management. He has worked at Board level in the private and public sectors in the UK and US and spent several years in academia. He was successively Director of Strategy for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Director, UK Retail Banking. He is active as a non-executive director, primarily in the finance and technology sectors. He teaches part-time at the University of Edinburgh Management School. He was the founding vice-chair of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR); and is a former Treasurer and Chair of the Audit Committee of Oxfam (GB), and of the Accounts Commission for Scotland.
Lailai Li is Director of the Institute for Environment & Development, Beijing and host institute for LEAD-China. Li Lailai received her bachelor’s degree in English, and a master’s and a doctorate in sociology from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States. Prior to her appointment as the National Program Director of LEAD-China, Li Lailai worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology and Anthropology at Peking University, where her research was focused on the interactions between the Chinese traditional values, agricultural activities and environmental impacts. She also served as Director of Information Resources at LEAD International (part time) from 1997 to 2001. She participates in the development of LEAD’s information strategy, thereby fulfilling her interest in exploring the role of information and information technology in the human endeavor toward the greater sustainability of society. Her research experiences and areas lie in NGO development to meet the functional requirement / challenge of the society and exploration of alternative development paths toward global sustainability.
Anna Maembe is a Leadership for Environment and Development (Lead) Cohort 4 Fellow from Southern Africa Programme. Anna has long outstanding experience of more than 25 years in environmental management and sustainable development issues, specializing in environmental and natural resources data processing using remotely sensed data, information and communication and environmental education and communication.
Anna is currently the Director for Environmental Information, Communication at the National Environment Management Council (NEMC) the corporate body responsible for environmental enforcement in Tanzania.
Anna holds a B.Sc. degree in Botany and Zoology from the University of Dar es salaam and M.Sc. in Ecology from ITC Netherlands. She also has certificates in Natural Resources Management and Environmental Education from UNEP Nairobi and Strathclyde University of Scotland. Anna is a member of the Communication Commission of IUCN, LEAD network, SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme, a trustee of the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, a Commonwealth Fellow and a member of several other professional bodies in Tanzania.
Pancho Ndebele has recently tendered his resignation from SAB Miller South Africa to move into carbon trading in South Africa. He was Head of Sustainable Development at SAB Miller, South Africa one of the world's largest brewing companies with assets around the globe and particularly in developing countries. Pancho hold MBA, Master of Laws (LLM) in Environmental Law, MSc in Water and Wastewater Engineering. In 2002 he served on the Business-coordinating Forum, for the WSSD and developed the water neutral concept for the WSSD. He has worked on water and effluent treatment projects, energy and emission reduction projects. He has experience in developing technical environmental solutions with a corporate social responsibility spin, project management and implementation of strategies for sustainable development. He was instrumental in driving the first carbon credit emission reduction project by a major corporate in south Africa to be registered by the United Nations CDM Executive Board, He serves on the National Environmental Advisory Forum that advises the South African National Business Initiative Sustainability Advisory Forum. He has worked for 3M and Hosiend in the UK.
Sheela Patel is founder and director of SPARC. ( Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres) a Mumbai based NGO founded in 1984 to work with and support the organizations and federations of the urban poor. SPARC is currently engaged in many initiatives, working with the National Slum Dwellers’ Federation and Mahila Milan (‘women together’ - savings groups formed by women slum and pavement dwellers) in many cities throughout India. She is also on the board of Slum/Shack Dwellers International, the umbrella group on which all the 'slum' and 'shack' dweller federations are represented. She has advised many international agencies, including being on the Millennium Project Taskforce on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers and the Advisory Board of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights and of the Cities Alliance. She has published widely, both on the work of federations and on the tools and methods that are appropriate for working with grassroots organizations. In 2001, she was awarded UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour.
Following his retirement as Group Vice President and Group General Auditor of BP plc in 2008 Ian Rushby currently hold a number of board positions in the public, private and charity sectors; Non Executive Board member of the Defence Board, the highest-level non-Ministerial committee at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Chairman of the Defence Audit Committee; Chairman of Global Energy Talent, a privately owned Indian based company which was founded in 2008 providing recruitment, training and human resourcing consultancy services to the energy sector in Asia, the Middle East and Africa; Trustee and Hon Treasurer of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust whose aim is to advance the education of the public in particular by the preservation and protection of their Antarctic heritage. He also work with English Heritage as a volunteer at Down House in Kent, the home of Charles Darwin. Ian was appointed Trustee of the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development November 2010.
Francisco Sagasti chairs the Board of the Science and Technology Program (FINCyT) at the Office of the Prime Minister in Peru, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a member of the international advisory board of the Lemelson Foundation, and advisor to private corporations, international organizations, foundations and public sector agencies. He also is Director Emeritus of FORO Nacional/Internacional, a civil society independent organization created to promote democratic governance and to foster dialogue and consensus on critical development issues.
Dr. Sagasti been Director of the Agenda: PERÚ program at FORO Nacional/Internacional; Chief of the Strategic Planning Division and Senior Advisor at the World Bank; chairman of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Development; Silberberg visiting professor at the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, visiting professor at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, and visiting professor at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid; and associate researcher at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Francisco Sagasti was born and educated in Lima, Peru. He holds engineering degrees from the National Engineering University in Lima, Peru, an MSc in industrial engineering from Penn State University, and a Ph.D. in operations research and social systems sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been visiting lecturer at several universities in the United States, Europe and developing regions.
In Peru Dr. Sagasti has been founder and executive director of GRADE, a policy-oriented think tank; advisor to the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Education, Industry and the Prime Minister; advisor to the Chief of the National Planning Institute and member of the board of the National Council for Science and Technology; vice-Chairman of the Board of the Industrial Technology Institute; has taught at the Universidad del Pacífico and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; and has been consultant to numerous private, public and civil society organizations.
Henrik Secher Marcussen, Denmark
Henrik Secher Marcussen has his Masters in Sociology from University of Copenhagen and his Ph.D. in International Economics from Copenhagen Business School. He has been employed with Roskilde University since 1973, but served as Senior Research Fellow with the then Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen for 3 1/2 years and as Principal Technical Advisor for UNSO/UNDP (UNSO: United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office) in New York during 1988 to 1991. He was Professor in Human Geography at Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Norway during the period 1998 to 2001, and has since 2001 been Professor and Head of Department of Geography and International Development Studies at Roskilde University. He is member of the Board for the Danish Institute of International Studies, and is member of committees under the Norwegian Research Council as well as the International Foundation of Science. Since January 2004, he has been member of Danida Board.
