Dr. Roshan Raj Shrestha
Director / Chairman
Ph.D. in Applied Natural Sciences, BOKU, Austria. M.Sc., TU, Nepal. Post-graduate coursework in Limnology, Austria. Founder, ENPHO. Advisor, UN-HABITAT. Deputy Director, Gates Foundation. His work has been recognized with the Mahendra Vidhya Bhushan (2000), Third World Academy of Sciences Award (2000), and contributions to globally recognized efforts, including the World Bank’s Development Market Global Competition and the Kyoto World Water Prize.
But his title remains what it always was: servant to the mission of WASH for all.
His Profile
After 37 years of bridging grassroots action and global strategy, Dr. Roshan Raj Shrestha has redefined what’s possible in water and sanitation.
His career began where progress is hardest: on the ground. In 1990, he founded the Environment & Public Health Organization (ENPHO) in Nepal, establishing it as a leading NGO in the country’s WASH sector and pioneering innovations that remain in use today, including household water treatment solutions (PIYUSH, Kanchan Arsenic Filter), wastewater reuse systems, and the eco-home concept integrating rainwater harvesting and waste management.
He spent seven years with UN-HABITAT as a Regional Technical Advisor for South Asia and a Settlement Improvement Advisor, leading a slum-upgrading program in Bangladesh. He then joined the Gates Foundation in 2012 as Deputy Director of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WSH) team. Over 13 years, he shaped strategic grant-making, built partnerships with development banks, and scaled non-sewered sanitation, fecal sludge management, and Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2021, he has led the WSH program for Asia, driving transformative technologies through demonstration, capacity building, and advocacy.
Dr. Shrestha didn’t just influence policy—he built the institutions to sustain it. He was instrumental in establishing the ADB Sanitation Trust Fund in 2014, catalyzing over $3 billion in sanitation investments. He architected regional capacity-building platforms in India and South Asia, and helped launch global knowledge hubs, including the Global Sanitation Graduate School (GSGS) and the Global Water and Sanitation Center (GWSC). His work with the Global Sanitation Center of Excellence at IIT Palakkad, India, focuses on building an engineering platform for testing and certifying water and sanitation products. His fingerprints are on national programs across the region, and his 2023 Bill Gates Sr. Award and 2025 IWA Global Sanitation Leader recognition reflect a career defined not by accolades, but by impact.
Now, through board roles at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) where he serves on the Board of Trustees and the Global Water and Sanitation Center (GWSC), his focus is singular: mentorship. Not sunset, but handoff.