Kanika Bansal

Kanika is a highly experienced urban development professional with over a decade of leadership in inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient urban initiatives across India. Her expertise spans policy advisory, programme design, research, and capacity building, delivered in close partnership with national and state governments, multilateral institutions, and leading think tanks. She brings deep expertise in universal design, gender and disability inclusion, inclusive sanitation, and climate resilience. Kanika has been instrumental in leading the development of major frameworks, including the Harmonised Guidelines and Standards (2021), the Inclusive City Framework, and the ABLE India Framework. She has also successfully supported the mainstreaming of social and economic inclusion across urban planning initiatives.Kanika is dedicated to strengthening institutional capacities, having trained more than a thousand practitioners on inclusive planning and embedding participatory, stakeholder-driven approaches in urban programmes. Kanika holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Planning and a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture. She has previously held roles with the National Institute of Urban Affairs and the Delhi Development Authority, among others. She is also a recipient of the prestigious Centre for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) Fellowship Cohort 2023-24 for her project on inclusive disaster resilience.