Kanak Tiwari is an Urban Designer and Development Practitioner with 20 years of experience in the urban sector. At the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), she is Programme Director of the Urban Strategy Unit, which is a multi-project unit aimed at driving transformations and tactical thinking in the urban sector in India. Kanak is also the Co-coordinator for the Urban 20 (U20) Technical Secretariat. At NIUA, she has also led the preparation of the Master Plan of Delhi 2041 and the Child Friendly Cities initiative.
Kanak specializes in urban planning and governance, people’s participation in development, urban regeneration, smart urbanism, and urban services and reforms. Previously, she has worked with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs as liaison, and coordinated several projects with state and city governments. She has extensive experience of working with NGOs as well as international development agencies such as the World Bank, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), Centre de Sciences Humaines, and INTACH among others. For over 10 years, she taught post-graduate courses at School of Planning and Architecture and Jamia Millia Islamia as a visiting faculty member. Kanak has published a number of papers on architecture and urbanism. She has an M.Phil in Development Studies from University of Cambridge and Masters in Urban Design from SPA, New Delhi, for which she received the Commonwealth and the GATE scholarships respectively.