Jagjeet Sareen is a Senior Policy Officer at the Climate Change Global Practice at the World Bank Group Headquarters in Washington DC.
Till July 2022, he served as the Assistant Director-General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). On secondment from the World Bank Group, Jagjeet has helped build ISA from a political idea to a well-recognized multilateral organization with more than 100 member countries.
He has mobilized 100 million dollars from member countries and global foundations to implement solar energy projects across developing countries.
Jagjeet has also formulated a blueprint for raising one billion dollars, a blended risk mitigation facility for Africa, a country partnership framework, and ISA’s engagements with governments, multilateral, private sector and development banks.
At the World Bank, Jagjeet helped negotiate Climate Investment Funds, a ten-billion-dollar fund, from a sunset clause to its recapitalization, successfully repositioning it in global climate negotiations.
Previously at the Green Climate Fund (GCF), he led the design of key strategy and operational policies for the Fund, particularly its business model framework. He played a crucial role in conceptualizing and designing the GCF and negotiating the associated geopolitical processes.
In a career of over 17 years, his focus has been on green infrastructure, clean energy, investment, and climate finance, working across organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Green Climate Fund, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, Ernst & Young, and TERI.
Jagjeet is a strategic thinker and practitioner of geo-economics and development finance with a master’s degree in public policy. He is keenly interested in international relations and geopolitics of major powers, energy and climate. He is an avid reader and lives with his wife and two children.
Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jagjeet-sareen/?originalSubdomain=in
Twitter : https://twitter.com/JagjeetSareen
Q. How has your journey been from IIFM to this role?
A. I pursued climate change as an area of interest during IIFM. I took the opportunity to take climate as a topic for all my class assignments, OT and fieldwork projects. The climate-related issues, like carbon trading and clean development mechanism (CDM), were new at that time and were fascinating! I also used to take a Bhopal Express to visit Delhi to attend climate-related conferences. Professors at the Institute encouraged and guided me to explore career options in the field of climate. With an introduction from Prof Deep Panday, I got a consulting assignment from a US-based firm named Forest Trends right after finishing my PFM in 2005. Working as an independent consultant was not my best talent, so I joined TERI in late 2005 as a Research Associate in the Policy Analysis Division. TERI was the perfect institute for a climate junkie like me. I got tremendous exposure to donors, aid agencies, a private consulting firm and government machinery. To get a taste of carbon markets, I joined Ernst and Young in 2006 and worked on a few CDM projects.
In the world of climate negotiations, which I had a minimal idea of, climate finance regained importance as the issue to unlock global climate agreement. The UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn, Germany, was assembling a team of young analysts to prepare a Global Investment and Financial Flows analysis on the kinds of monies required to address climate change effectively. I was fortunate to get selected to be part of that team as an expert who knew forestry, carbon markets and finance. For the next six years (2007-13), as a UN diplomat, I worked on climate finance analysis and inter-governmental negotiations. In 2011, I was seconded by the UNFCCC secretariat to be part of a Technical Support Unit to assist in designing the Green Climate Fund. When the GCF moved to its headquarters in Songdo, Korea, I decided to move to the USA.
In 2013, I joined the North American office of the Asian Development Bank in Washington, DC. My role was to secure climate funds for ADB from Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) housed at the World Bank. With some insiders pull, I joined the World Bank in 2014 to work on climate policy and finance. Working at the CIFs and supporting the Special Envoy for Climate gave me a unique opportunity to work on both operational and strategic aspects of climate finance. I also got a chance to work with the G20 team at the Bank to engage with IMF and the Finance Track in the G20 process. This opened the fascinating wider world of global economic governance for me. I vividly remember participating in an IMF Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting right across from Ms Cristine Lagarde, then the Managing Director of the IMF.
In 2018, I was approached to join the International Solar Alliance. The ISA is the first international organisation led by and headquartered in India. With a nudge from the Government of India, the World Bank sent me on secondment to ISA in 2018. As the Assistant Director-General in charge of Strategy and Resource Mobilization, I worked on almost every financial and strategic aspect of the ISA to make it fully operational. This also included supporting the launch of the One Sun One World One Grid initiative by PM Modi and PM Johnson at the Glasgow Climate Cop in 2021. My four years secondment term at ISA ended in June/July 2022, and I returned to the World Bank.
As I returned to the Bank, I had some time to reflect on my 17 years of professional journey, working on various aspects of climate at national and international levels. I realized that most of my work has been in public sector institutions. With these reflections and some nudge from my wife, I decided to turn a new page in my professional journey. I am joining Dalberg Development Advisors, a strategy advisory firm in the new year. I will lead their climate and sustainability work pan-Asia. This new role will hopefully make me a well-rounded professional as well!
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. I have worked on the design of three institutions-Climate Investment Funds, Green Climate Fund and International Solar Alliance and assisted in a global agreement on climate finance.
Supporting climate finance negotiations at the UNFCCC in the run-up to Copenhagen COP gave me tremendous learning opportunities. I worked with the leaders in the field, both technical and political levels.
It gives me immense professional satisfaction to have contributed, in some modest manner, to worldwide discourse and actions on climate finance.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. At ISA, I made the Institution’s processes, strategy, and implementation tools international. Supporting the operationalization of the first international Institution headquartered in India was a tremendous professional delight!
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. At IIFM, you must keep enhancing your knowledge as the career path needs to be better defined. Plus, you get exposed to a wide variety of subjects. A combination of these vectors has helped me along the way as I navigated my professional career through the evolving field of climate change.
Q. Who (or what) are the most significant influences or drivers in your careers? What is your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates looking to choose similar sectors/roles?
A. The universe also seeks to support you if you genuinely strive to achieve something. Many Professors and Alums have guided me at over the past 17 years of my professional journey.
For freshers, my advice is simple. There is no substitute for hard work. Also, in this age of hyper connectivity, all resources are available and any information is a click away. Put in the hours and days to deepen your knowledge about the field you wish to make a career.
Q. What are your favourite memories during your IIFM days?
A. In 2004, the first IIFM Student Association was formed. For my sins, I was voted as its first President. The Student Association pursued an agenda to introduce ” specialization ” in IIFM’s curriculum.
I also learnt kayaking at Bhopal lakes!!
Q. In hindsight, what was the most significant contribution (courses, faculty, library, friends, alumni.. Anything else!!) or takeaway from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. I wish to recognize Dr R K Singh, Ms Suprabha Patnaik and Dr Madhu Verma, and superstar alums –Jayesh Bhatia, Vineet Rai and Sandeep da. The Librarian was immensely helpful to me.
I made great friends for life at IIFM, both from my batch and my immediate next batch.
It may sound ironic, but IIFM gave me all the free time and technical resources to pursue the career I wanted.
Q. The best buddies/seniors/faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. We celebrated almost all the time (with an old monk and more) when it rained and didn’t.
Q. As alumni, what’s your advice to freshers or those who are joining IIFM to get the best out of the two years there?
A. Find a field of interest and give your 100% to it. Career doors will open automatically for you….
Q. What is your typical day at the office?
A. It’s always a mix of administrative work, meetings, and some time for thinking and planning….COVID made it a bit complex with non-stop Zoom and MS Teams meetings at odd hours as I deal with member countries across the globe.
Q. And how about weekends, Hobbies, Family and Anything else you want to add?
A. Weekends are primarily with family. I have two young kids who keep my wife and me busy!
I am an avid reader of current affairs and non-fiction books. I have picked up golf and shooting over the past years. I enjoy spending time at the gym. At IIFM, I was a frequent visitor to the make-shift gym…
Q. Favourite Books, movies, authors?
A. I like reading books by Henry Kissinger, and to my delight, he even writes in his nineties….His latest book on Leadership is a great read.
Q. IIFM is driven by alums’ passion and commitment towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alums and students?
A. I am happy to contribute to guest lecture series on climate if this would be of value to students. I also support Sandeep da(President, Alumni Association) in building a solid corpus for the AA.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there? What do you think is a positive change, and what is not?
A. I hear that interest in the Institution has gone down. Without going into any specific reason, I call on all alums to contribute in their ways to amplify the usefulness of the Institution.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. You can interview alums from outside India, like from Mauritius and Nepal.