Jyotsna Puri

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Back to the list Measuring Progress

Jyotsna Puri

The Evaluator

The world’s largest climate fund, the Green Climate Fund, has been running now for more than a decade. Three years ago, Jyotsna Puri, otherwise known as Jo, was brought in to head the Fund’s Independent Evaluation Unit, analyzing its machinery to make sure it’s staying on track.

“Faster, smarter, better is basically what I think about all the time,” says Puri, who spent more than 20 years prior bouncing between the World Bank, branches of the United Nations, teaching positions at Colombia University and authoring multiple books.

Yet what makes Puri exceptional as an evaluator is that in order to push toward optimum impact and efficiency of the Fund’s resources, she goes a step beyond the data to the “three b’s,” as she likes to say: bias, benefits and behavior. How do these affect people’s decisions on how they treat the planet? And how can the Green Climate Fund address this fundamental issue rather than the symptoms?

“Climate change is your best example of inaction of those who have all the knowledge,” she says. “People change behavior when you set up the incentives and when you set up the infrastructure to make change possible.” Consider her a key architect.

Wanjira Mathai

The Legacy Restoration

Ayesha Khan

The Investor

Houria Djoudi

The Protector

Éliane Ubalijoro

The Leader

Marina Silva

The Policymaker

Yuriko Backes

The Politician

Vera Songwe

The Financier

Fe Cortez

The Entrepreneur Youth

Mariem Dkhil

The Financier

Autumn Peltier

The Protector Youth

Julie Becker

The Inventor Finance

Katharine Hayhoe

The Believer

Joselyn Dumas

The Influencer Rights

Jolene Marie Cholock-Rotinsulu

The Role Model Youth

Jennifer Morris

The Conservationist Food & Livelihoods

Inna Modja

The Artist