By Jennine Meyer

Ajay Deshpande, who joined the Inspection Panel in March 2025, can state many things about himself with certainty. He grew up in a small town in India, where his mother tongue was Marathi. There, he developed a taste for cricket and yoga. He holds a Doctorate in Environmental Engineering from IIT Delhi and a Bachelor of Laws from Mumbai University. He has served in many environment and climate-related roles over the last 30 years, including as an Expert Member at India’s National Green Tribunal (NGT). As a Compliance Review Panel Member at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), he advised on large-scale environmental restitution and sustainability projects. But he stops short of labeling himself as a climate expert: “I will call myself a person working in the overall space of environmental governance,” he explains. “I'm a technocrat.” In a recent Accountability Matters interview, Dr. Deshpande, the first Indian member of the Panel, reflected on the complexity of climate issues and the challenges they pose for accountability.

You are the Inspection Panel’s newest member. How would you describe your first months on the Panel? 

Quite interesting, actually. Luckily, I had a similar type of experience earlier in my career. I worked in the environmental justice system, and then with a similar accountability mechanism—ADB’s Compliance Review Panel.

Many things are happening simultaneously across the globe—geopolitical, as well as the consolidation of the financial institutions. And definitely, accountability has been challenged at some levels. It is quite a happening time, where we are talking about the One World Bank Group… and that’s very interesting work.

How did you familiarize yourself with the Panel’s work over the last 30-plus years? 

I’m from India, and when the Panel started in 1993, one of the reasons was the Narmada (India – Sardar Sarovar Project) case. That is the project where the Bank started thinking seriously about accountability and safeguards. So, I have been aware of the Inspection Panel’s activities since the beginning. At the same time, I worked in a similar space, as an environmental regulator. Subsequently, I joined the specialized judicial forum, the National Green Tribunal in India, where adjudications in environmental and related matters were practiced. I then joined the ADB’s Compliance Review Panel. Some of the cases we dealt with in India had linkages with the World Bank as well as IFC.

Information on the Inspection Panel is readily available, but I think my experience of working in the space of environmental justice, as well as accountability, familiarized me before I joined…so I was comfortable.

The procedures of independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs) vary from institution to institution. The processes also vary a bit here and there, but overall, the objectives and the purpose are more or less the same.

You are an expert in environmental compliance and governance. What motivated you to pursue climate as an area of expertise? 

I don’t know whether I should call myself a climate expert, but I will call myself a person working in the overall space of environmental governance. I’m a technocrat. I’m an environmental engineer, and I did my PhD in air pollution and air quality management. My focus when I completed my PhD was mainly on air quality management: urban air quality, and industrial air pollution. Once you join a regulator, you are expected to deal with a variety of environmental issues and concerns. I then joined as an adjunct professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Mumbai, India, a premier technical institute, and started teaching environmental governance and policy.

And as a part of climate policy, decarbonization is one area where a lot of things are happening in the technical domain. Climate is a very broad subject, but I work in a very small component of that—decarbonization and the circular economy—and that’s really the technical core component. [This involves] increasing the overall efficiency of the processes, particularly the resource consumption and combustion processes, as you try to reduce the carbon footprint. So I’m working on mitigation.

When I see my role as an environmental regulator back then, our overall mandate was to reduce the pollution load or the environmental footprint of a particular project. And there you need to think about process optimization—what we call waste strength reduction and waste volume reduction. All these technical interventions lead to what is called optimal performance, which is nothing but decarbonization. The objective is to make the processes simple, more efficient, and use minimum resources.

You have served as an advisor on large-scale environmental restitution and sustainability projects. What accountability challenge most frequently arises with multilateral development bank projects concerning climate-related responsibilities? 

Climate is at the top of the pyramid. There are multiple facets to it. If you are constructing a road, then you can attempt to use a minimum of natural resources by optimizing the processes. Recently, there have been efforts through circular economy principles to use some recycled material and waste material from industries in road construction—that really helps. Climate considerations can be integrated in road design in terms of drainage capacity, surface material selection, and so on, to withstand the impacts of climate change.

Most financial institutions carry out climate-related assessments of projects. This is not an easy job. Carrying out what we call vulnerability assessment studies is a huge analytical exercise, with a lot of analytical data and computer modeling. Certain scenarios need to be reflected in the project design. These add to the cost. The more you want to be safe or risk-proof, the more the cost of the project goes up. It’s always a very informed decision taken by the technical team to develop the most likely scenarios, and the project is designed accordingly. So that’s the challenge.

When we talk about accountability or any judicial scrutiny, normally one looks at whether the best practices have been followed and whether due diligence has been done adequately. Nowadays, that’s good practice. Climate is an essential and integrated part of the overall project design, appraisal, and evaluation. This is bound to evolve with time. I think that’s the challenge for accountability right now as the World Bank Accountability Mechanism needs to develop capacity in climate-related investigations.

Given that climate is viewed as a global public good, it can be more challenging for communities to raise complaints related to the impacts of climate projects. In your experience, how can IAMs best support communities that are affected by climate projects?

This is a challenge…in many issues of climate impacts, there are no specific standards or numerical data available. Recently, ADB published a good practice document on climate impacts. Organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) are defining standard protocols and procedures so I’m sure climate will be one of the areas [of focus] for most international financial institutions.

With multiple banks joining hands in multi-financing projects, I hope there will be a lot more consistency and clarity in climate-related studies of projects. It will be more consolidated. Definitely, that is one area where most of the IAMs need to strengthen their capacity. At the recent Independent Accountability Mechanisms Network (IAMnet) Meetings in Barbados, there was a special session on climate-related accountability. It was noted that climate-related jurisprudence is evolving. Presently, different views are taken on different projects by courts in different countries. But I am sure very soon there will be defined jurisprudence through case law or precedents.

Environmental and social frameworks and other policies already have a climate component. They mandate that a climate assessment must be done for a variety of projects. But the contours of such studies need to be defined as detailed climate studies are complex and costly. We need to have a more uniform, consistent approach so that everybody—every stakeholder—is aware. Until that consistency is developed, it will be difficult to set a benchmark. The subject of climate change impacts will evolve in the coming years.

In addition to serving as a Panel member, you are an adjunct professor at IIT Bombay. When you talk to students about your role on the Inspection Panel, how do you describe it? Are they interested in accountability? 

I teach at one of the premier universities in the world—a technological university in India. Students come from all over India.

India, as you know, is big in numbers: 1.5 billion now. Because of the large population, there is stress on natural resources that is reflected in increased air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution, besides sanitation issues.

There has been a lot of judicial intervention, including by the NGT and the Supreme Court and High Courts. Theoretically, India has one of the finest environmental legislative frameworks. But because of its population, the cost involved, and so many other issues, there is no proper implementation of or compliance with those environmental regulations. So frankly, the students are really concerned…about the overall environmental status, including what we call environmental accountability. “Who is responsible?” And the next question is, “Why is action not being taken against the persons who are responsible?”

When I say “responsible,” there are two sides to it. One is the person causing the environmental problems, and the second is the person who is supposed to control this. India was the first country to identify a clean environment as a fundamental right of every citizen. That was done back in the 1980s. Every person in India has the right to raise a question about the environment—not only where they live, but anywhere. It is like our locus standi standard in accountability mechanisms. The Indian Constitution gives a duty to the citizen to protect the environment. It’s double-sided: You have a right and also a duty.

This generation is quite sensitive about that. They are very much aware of the overall environmental situation in the country and the contributing factors. They are trying to solve it, as part of the technical institute. They’re thinking about some innovation start-ups, which can help in improving the environmental status. We are talking about technology policy interaction—the circular economy, decarbonization, and the life cycle assessment.

But accountability, yes, everybody is concerned. It’s very difficult to answer their queries, their anxiety, and their concern for their future because for us, half of life is gone. For them, maybe it’s the start of their career.

What would you say to your namesake, the President of the World Bank Group, about accountability?

Coincidentally, he was born in the same city I used to live in—Pune. So, I can say we are from the same town.

One advantage of my being named Ajay is everybody pronounces my name very well at the Bank. That’s a great benefit.

Apart from that, I think I can understand the challenge of being President of the World Bank. The mandate of the World Bank Group is really a significant driver of poverty reduction with sustainable development, as reflected in the Bank’s core values. I appreciate the ongoing efforts to realize a “One World Bank Group,” as having four institutions with different policies and frameworks is a bit cumbersome for internal and external stakeholders.

Protecting the environment (including social safeguards) and ensuring accountability will improve the Bank’s effectiveness…they are the cornerstones of the Bank’s success. I’m sure with [the Bank’s] consolidation that the environmental safeguards will be more robust, more practically feasible, and there will be accountability with more effective remedy measures…I really have very high expectations on that count.