eThekwini MunicipalityEnvironmentalist
Dec. 2004 - Jan. 2022South Africa, DurbanManisha Maganlal has worked as an environmentalist in local government for eighteen years. She has an academic background in Environmental Management with an Honours Degree from the University of Natal, Durban.
Manisha has extensive experience in the biodiversity, climate change, sustainability, and urban resilience fields. Manisha has been involved in the development of numerous sustainability policies, strategies, plans, programmes, and projects at the local government level. Through these sustainability initiatives, she has gained significant experience in the management and coordination of complex multi-stakeholder consultation processes. She has played an important role in integrating biodiversity, climate change, and sustainability issues into local government decision-making and planning processes.
Being at the coalface of innovation, Manisha has had the opportunity to convene diverse people (local NGOs, academia, local authority, provincial authority, local and internal businesses, etc.) around complex issues and to test new ideas that would inform local planning and policy development processes. Manisha has worked with a diverse range of stakeholders, locally, nationally, and internationally.
Manisha was directly involved in the development of Durban’s first Resilience Strategy. As key member of the Durban’s Chief Resilience Officer Team. Manisha has been responsible for the development of Resilience Building Option 1: Collaborative Informal Settlement Action – Implementation plan, which specially focuses on improving the well-being and livelihood of informal settlement communities in Durban.
Manisha was involved in the overall programme coordination and implementation of the United Kingdom Prosperity Fund: Global Future Cities Programme in Durban. The Global Future Cities Programme is a UK Government initiative to support sustainable and inclusive economic growth, leading to poverty reduction in middle-income developing countries. Manisha was responsible for coordinating, overseeing, and reporting on the implementation of the Future Cities Programme in Durban; broader engagement with the International Funders; and convening the Municipal Technical Teams of the Future Cities Programme in Durban.