Senior Resident Advisor
Centre for Energy, Environment, Urban Governance and Infrastructure Development
Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad India.
Mr. J. David Foster is senior resident advisor to ASCI, the leading Indian institution providing capacity-building support for improvement of urban infrastructure and services. ASCI is a 50 year old private fee-supported institution that partners with the Indian Ministry of Urban Development, the Confederation of Indian Industries, a number of prominent NGOs and development assistance agencies (USAID, DFID, UNDP, World Bank).
ASCI is a recognized leader in development and implementation of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM), the acclaimed performance-based grant system for improving water supply, transport and other urban services for India’s most important cities. ASCI also has long-term capacity-building contracts with a number of Indian states including Kerala, home to The Backwaters, a water body directly comparable to the Chesapeake Bay in terms of its scenic, biological and economic resources, as well as environmental challenges.
Mr. Foster is a senior environmental policy and infrastructure specialist with over 30 years experience in developing countries and the United States. A retired Foreign Service Officer with a distinctive career including USEPA, USAID, private consulting firms and academia - he has had notable success in building and motivating multi-disciplinary teams in the design and implementation of innovative solutions to urban environmental problems. In India, he has played a leading role in the promotion of Continuously Pressurized (24/7) Water Supply, Capacity Building for Public Private Partnerships in Urban Services, and improving Water and Sanitation, Services, particularly, for the Urban Poor. The Ministry of Urban Development credits David and ASCI with helping move India from a situation where virtually no cities had 24/7 water supply to one in which 43 cities are now actively pursuing it.
He has 14 years resident experience in Asia (India, Thailand and Vietnam), serving for six or those years as USAID’s Senior Urban Environmental Advisor for Asia. While with USEPA, he was Director of the Office of Outreach and Economic Incentives and was recognized as a “National Expert in the Promotion of Innovative Pollution Control Technology” and a leader in the development of the “Emission Trading Program” (the forerunner of the Carbon Trading System under the Kyoto Protocols).
Mr. Foster received a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland, an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech, and has completed his PhD course work in Environmental Planning and Policy Analysis from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He and his wife, Barbara, are Maryland residents who currently divide their time between India and their Chestertown home, near the Chesapeake Bay.
He is a former U.S. Marine and Peace Corps Volunteer. He has extensive experience in Afghanistan, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. In addition to his work with ASCI, he also serves as a consultant to USAID, World Bank, and the Gates Foundation. He is a skilled writer and trainer in English and conversant in French, Spanish and Vietnamese.
The Maryland Connection
Mr. Foster and his wife, Barbara, were children of University of Maryland professors and have long ties to Maryland and its institutions. They both graduated from the University of Maryland and Barbara was later an instructor both on the College Park Campus and with University College in Vietnam. Although long active in International Development, their American home for the past ten years has been on the Eastern Shore of Maryland on the Chester River, not far from the Chesapeake Bay. In addition to his international consulting work, David also served on the Board of Directors of the Kent Family Center in Chestertown, Maryland.