TRI | India Rural Colloquy 2023

Santosh Kumar Singh

Santosh Kumar Singh

Managing Director, Intellecap

Santosh Singh is the Managing Director at Intellecap Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd., where he leads the energy, climate change, and agriculture practice. Intellecap is the advisory arm of Aavishkaar Group and works towards creating a sustainable and equitable society by enabling ecosystems and channeling capital.

With almost two decades of experience, Santosh specializes in market-based climate finance instruments, results-based financing frameworks, climate resilience strategies for agriculture and forestry, and achieving climate policy commitments. He has led advisory engagements across Asia and Africa, playing a crucial role in shaping the carbon market in India in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, The World Bank, Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, BMGF, ADB, and others.

Santosh's work includes assessing the demand for carbon credits in challenging sectors, designing institutional mechanisms for India's carbon market, developing technical infrastructure aligned with the Paris Agreement's Article 6, and creating frameworks for market-based mechanisms for ecosystem-based services.

He is also involved in the design and implementation of innovative financing mechanisms, such as a carbon finance platform for smallholder farmers in India, a blended finance risk mitigation facility for the solar sector in Africa, a 'Carbon First Fund' for nature-based solutions and result-based financing, and a first-loss guarantee fund for energy access enterprises and consumers.

Prior to his role at Intellecap, Santosh was a core member of the World Bank team implementing the Partnership of Market Readiness program, providing support for carbon pricing instruments in India. Throughout his career, he has successfully mobilized over USD 30 million of climate finance from various global organizations.