Deepa Pullanikkatil

Career

Upon completing her studies, Pullanikkatil worked as a civil engineer on a hospital project in India and then on a water and sanitation project in rural Lesotho. In 2003, she was hired as a lecturer at Lerotholi Polytechnic, in Maseru, Lesotho, and worked her way up to the head of the department. Her research work at the time focused on the impact of climate change on Lesotho's subsistence farming workers. While teaching at Lerotholi, Pullanikkatil earned a master's degree from the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 2009. The following year, she moved to Malawi and began working with the Rockefeller Foundation's programme, Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD). The programme was designed to allow interdisciplinary collaboration between academics and other partners, encouraging them to work together on initiatives for sustainable development. Pullanikkatil's partners within LEAD were undertaken with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to create a policy on climate change for the government of Malawi. During a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2014, Pullanikkatil and Doreen Othero of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, argued in favor of development efforts which coordinated environmental conservation projects with health and economic initiatives. They pointed out that goals to protect resources were often unreachable because of the failure to address the impact on the livelihoods and well-being of the communities concerned.

In 2015, Pullanikkatil was hired to carry out a needs assessment for the technology required to address climate change for the government of Swaziland (since 2018, Eswatini), in a project coordinated through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and United Nations Environment Programme. She completed her PhD with the thesis, "Ecosystem Services Mapping of Likangala River Catchment, Southern Malawi" that year, at North-West University. The thesis explored the impact of human activity on water quality in the Likangala River, concluding that urban pollution from households, service facilities, and industries, as well as agricultural wastewater and fertiliser runoff, had increased contamination of the river. She began her post-doctoral fellowship at Rhodes University in 2016 and went on to complete a residency at the University of Glasgow in 2018. She worked at an NGO she founded, Abundance, and as a co-director for Sustainable Futures in Africa in Eswatini in 2019, before being hired in 2020 to manage the nationally determined contributions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions for Eswatini. As the manager, she worked with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Commonwealth Foundation, the International Renewable Energy Agency, UNDP, UNEP, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Resources Institute to coordinate the various programmes aimed to meet Eswatini's targets. In 2022, Eswatini was recognised at the United Nations Climate Change Conference with the "Best Urban Initiative of the Year Award". At the conference, Pullanikkatil was a member of a panel discussion, "Climate Plans for Energy Resilience in Africa and Small Island States". She stressed the importance of having a plan to address extreme weather which could damage energy infrastructure and of training women and youth in green technology both for assisting in development and reducing unemployment.

In 2023, Pullanikkatil became the Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisor for Fiji, replacing Katherine Cooke. The position was created by the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access HUB was which formed in 2015 by Commonwealth leadership to assist government ministries and other organisations on climate and development initiatives. The partnership with Fiji and the Commonwealth hub provides funding to enable the local government to implement their strategic plans for sustainable growth and climate initiatives. Pullanikkatil is responsible for overseeing the completion of government programmes to provide electricity to rural areas, protect the environment, and implement an electric bus system.