Sylvanus K. Adzornu is the Director for Urban Development at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Ghana. He has experience and excessive knowledge on urban development and the local government system. He contributed to the formulation of the National Urban Agenda, the Ghana National Urban Policy and Action Plan, and the establishment of the Ghana Urban Forum. Mr Adzornu served as one of the experts in the preparation of the New Urban Agenda.

He has also led Ghana’s participation in global and continental urban conferences, contributing specifically to the drafting of the New Urban Agenda and the African Urban Agenda through UN-Habitat and the World Urban Forum in Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia.

He is passionate about urban development and about promoting investment in the infrastructure and the financial autonomy of local authorities as a means of ensuring the development of cities.
He holds a BSc in Planning from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Urban Development Finance from IHS, Rotterdam, and a master's degree in Organisational Development. He has over 24 years of experience in planning and urban development and is currently coordinating the Ghana Urban Management Pilot Programme (GUMPP) and Ghana's Urban Agenda.

Nathaly Agurto is a technical advisor in the “Sustainable Transport” projects implemented by GIZ Peru. As such, she contributes to the monitoring and the implementation of the communication strategy and the gender perspective of the projects. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication for Development from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

Dr Rüdiger Ahrend is Head of the Urban Programme in the OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development. In this capacity, he has been supervising numerous urban projects, for example on metropolitan development and governance, urban productivity, land use, and housing. He is the main author of “The Metropolitan Century: Understanding Urbanisation and its Consequences”. Before he started working at OECD in 2002, Ahrend worked as a researcher and independent consultant. He holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics, as well as degrees in Social Sciences and Mathematics from the University of Göttingen, Paris-IX Dauphine, and the Sorbonne.

Dr Olaoluwa Pheabian Akinwale is Director of Research in the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research in Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria. As principal investigator, consultant and technical partner, Dr Akinwale actively participates in several research and disease control programs in Nigeria.

Dr. Graham Alabaster is the Chief of Sanitation and Waste Management at the Urban Basic Services Branch of UN-Habitat. He has over 25 years experience in the water sanitation and solid waste management working in over 30 countries. He has a special interest in urban systems and is experienced in provision of services to low income urban populations.

Safiqul Alam is the managing director and CEO at the software and planning company Geomark Limited. He holds an M.Phil in Urban Geography from Dhaka University.

María José Amilibia, Physician, Gynecologist, and Master of Science in Global Urban Health, is a technical officer at the Master's program of Global Urban Health at Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany. She studied at the National University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and completed her graduate studies at the University of Freiburg. Her Master's thesis was on Dengue vector prevention and control in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Kofi Annan, the founding chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and was the Secretary-General of the United Nations between 1997 and 2006. With the Foundation, Kofi Annan seeks to mobilise political will to overcome threats to peace, development and human rights.

Urvashi Aneja is Founding Director of Tandem Research, a multi-disciplinary research collective that generates policy insights at the interface of technology, society, and sustainability. She is also Associate Fellow at Chatham House. Urvashi lives and works out of Goa, India.

Casimiro António is a disaster risk reduction and environment expert with nearly 12 years of risk reduction and adaptation experience, including 4 years of implementing a USAID-funded costal city adaptation project in Mozambique. His expertise includes institutional capacity building; adaptation and resilience knowledge product and tools management; trainings and project management. He has also worked as national coordination director with the Government Disaster Management Agency, and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Management Officer with the United Nations Development Agency (UNDP) in Mozambique. Mr. António holds a Master’s degree in disaster risk reduction and management from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and Lund University (Sweden) and a post-graduate diploma in environmental impact assessment and management from the High Institute for Technology and Communication (ISUTC), Mozambique.

Brian App is an international natural resource management specialist with over 15 years of experience working in the environmental sector. Mr. App works with Chemonics International where he currently serves as the home office director for the USAID Combatting Wildlife Crime in Southern Africa and Mozambique Costal Cities Adaptation programs. Previously, he served as the deputy chief of party for the Southern Africa Regional Environmental Program (2011-2015) to build resiliency and improve management in the Okavango river basin. He holds a B.S. in management science from the School of Business at the State University of New York and an M.S. in international natural resource management from the School of Forestry at the University of Montana, USA.

Mario Arauz is the Director of Government Innovation and Intelligent Cities of the Guadalajara City Council, Mexico. He is a specialist for digital media and an activist for governmental transparency. He has many years of experience in the field of data mining and big data.

Jasmin Atwaa arbeitet als Beraterin im GIZ-Regionalvorhaben „Stärkung kommunaler Entwicklung und Demokratie“. Im Rahmen dieses Vorhabens koordiniert sie Aktivitäten desMarseiller Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) und organisiert regionale Veranstaltungen in Frankreich, Deutschland und im Maghreb.

Jelena Auracher is focusing on accessible urban development issues in connection with the New Urban Agenda and is specialized in accessible mobility. She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Science.

bezev is a German NGO which advocates the rights of Persons with Disabilities in development cooperation contexts.

Dr. Shadnaz Azizi is an urban thinker, deeply interested in management during change. She is a local pathways fellow at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). She was a consultant to UN Habitat’s National Urban Campaign in Tehran, having contributed to the release of the book “The City Iranians Need”. Shadnaz is currently involved in the project “Hashti Tehran” while serving as the Lead Environmental Specialist in Negin Shahr Ayandeh Consulting Engineer Co.

Claire Baker is Director of Development for LivelyHoods. She was part of an award-winning French NGO, leading projects and communications in the accessibility rights movement and also has experience in solar energy distribution in East Africa. She now applies her knowledge to the development of fundraising, growth, and partnerships strategy for LivelyHoods. as well as overseeing monitoring and evaluation and communications.

M H Bala Subrahmanya is a professor specialised in Industrial Economics with a focus on start-ups, SMEs, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He has extensively researched on Bangalore and its entrepreneurial ecosystem. In addition, he has carried out research and consultancy projects sponsored by international organisations such as the EU, IWMI, the World Bank, and national organisations such as DST, ICSSR, and UGC.

Howaida Barakat is Advisor of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities in Egypt. Her work focuses on informal settlements and sustainable housing, among other topics.

Ritwika Basu is a researcher at the UN-Habitat India Office. She works at the intersection of climate change and urban development with a focus on global climate change resilient frameworks and corresponding local action. Previously, she has worked with the climate change adaptation consortium jointly funded by the IDRC and DFID.

Maria Olanda Bata is a food security, early warning and disaster risk reduction specialist with more than 15 years experience working in the development sector with governmental, academic, and international organisations from Mozambique, southern Africa, and the United States. Ms. Bata currently serves as the Chief of Party for USAID’s Coastal Cities Adaptation Program in Mozambique (CCAP), heading activities to increase understanding of urban adaptation issues and the application of management options for urban adaptation. Prior to CCAP, she served as Country Representative and National Technical Manager for USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network project where she successfully managed several projects on livelihoods, disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction. She holds a MSc in Agriculture Education and Communication from the University of Florida, USA.

Uwe Becker ist Projektleiter des vom BMUB im Rahmen der Internationalen Klimaschutzinitiative (IKI) geförderten GIZ-Vorhabens „Ressourceneffizienz und Sekundärrohstoffmanagement als Beitrag zum Klimaschutz“ in Indien. Er ist weiterhin Mitglied der weltweit agierenden Arbeitsgruppe Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA) der GIZ, die sich zu Themen der nachhaltigen Entwicklung von industriellen und städtischen Bereichen austauscht.

Roger Behrens is an Associate Professor in the University of Cape Town’s Department of Civil Engineering. He is Director of the Centre for Transport Studies, and of the African Centre of Excellence for Studies in Public and Non-motorised Transport. He graduated with a Master Degree in City and Regional Planning from UCT in 1991, and with a PhD degree in 2002.

Dr Christoph Beier was appointed to the Management Board of former Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) in 2010 and has been Vice-Chair of the GIZ Management Board since 2011. From 2000 he held various leading management positions within GTZ and initially headed the Planning and Development Department and then different Regional Departments. Before, Christoph Beier advised the Ministry of the Interior in Indonesia on decentralization on behalf of GTZ and worked as research and teaching assistant to the chair for economics and social geography at Ruhr-University Bochum as well as for a business promotion agency and for the Ministry of Economics in Saarland.

Lou Del Bello is a climate journalist who specialises in science and development issues. She is a COP veteran and has been following the work of the UN climate framework for more than five years.

Daphne Besen holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and a Master’s degree in Social Science. She worked at the International Relations Department of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall for 3 years and is currently working as Head of International Relations at the Duque de Caxias City Hall.

Sharmila Bhagat has been working in the education and social sector for the last thirty years. She has conceptualised and designed pedagogical interventions for marginalised children, young people, and communities. She is a trainer in the areas of children's rights, pedagogy, and gender. She has facilitated collaborative research projects with reputed international universities and has given presentations at various fora such as UNCRC DGD 2016 on ‘Play and Urban Environments’ and at the International seminar on ‘Theorising Child Particpation’. As a Fullbright scholar, she has worked on issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and homelessness in United States.

Eugénie L. Birch is founding Co-Director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor of Penn Press’s The City in the 21st Century series and co-editor of the SSRN Urban ejournal. Ms. Birch’s recent publications include: Slums: How the Informal Real Estate Markets Work (2016), Global Urbanization (2011), Women’s Health and the World’s Cities (2011), all of which were co-edited with Susan Wachter and others. She has served as a member of the New York City Planning Commission and on the jury to select the designers for the World Trade Center site. She is currently President of the General Assembly of Partners. Ms. Birch, who lives in New York City, holds a Ph.D. and a Masters in Urban Planning from Columbia University.

Steven is a specialist in climate change, urban development, and sustainable energy. Prior to joining UN-Habitat, he spent four years working with local governments in South Africa to drive forward collaborative low-carbon energy transitions. Steven completed a work-based Master’s degree in Leadership for Sustainable Development in 2010 and graduated with a first-class Geography degree from Cambridge University in 2009. In his spare time, he directs Eco MoJo, a small communications agency, which profiles positive stories of change towards sustainability. He cycles everywhere he can.

John Bongat is the mayor of Naga City in the Philippines.

Somsook Boonyabancha is currently the Chairperson of Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, a regional network of communities, NGOs and professionals in Asia. She is former Director of the Community Organizations Development Institute, which managed a national community development fund and carried out a city community upgrading program on national scale in Thailand. An architect by training, she holds an honorary PhD in Architecture from Khonkhaen University. She also received special training on Housing and Urbanisation from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Denmark. Her whole life, she has been involved in collective housing and community development processes in which members of poor communities themselves are the key drivers.

Stephanie Buechler, Research Scientist, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona.Dr. Buechler has conducted research on gendered livelihoods linked to urban and peri-urban agriculture in semi-arid Tucson, Arizona, USA; Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India and near Magdalena, Sonora, Mexico.

Vera Bukachi is Senior Research Coordinator and leading project manager in the field of flood resilience at the Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a non-profit design and community development organisation. She predominately works with communities living in Nairobi’s largest slum Kibera, who are affected by flooding events. Prior to joining KDI, Vera Bukachi worked as a consultant at ARUP, where she provided technical expertise in the field of water and sanitation. She has a background in environmental engineering.

Himanshu Burte, architect and urbanist, is an Assistant Professor at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. His book Space for Engagement: The Indian Artplace and a Habitational Approach to Architecture (Seagull Books, 2008) proposed a new conceptual framework for architecture, centred on the act of dwelling. He researches infrastructure, architecture, urban space, policy, and practice through concerns about lived experience, spatial justice, structural violence, and sustainability. He is co-editor (with Amita Bhide) of the forthcoming Urban Parallax: Policy and the City in Contemporary India (Yoda Press, 2018).

Alfonso Cabrillo Losada was born and grown in Santander, Spain, into a family of architects. He studied to become MSC in Civil Engineering and has developed a career in infrastructure public investments, institutional development, and policy and strategy analysis in developing countries.

After having successfully worked for more than 15 years at the European Commission, Alfonso took a career break to develop new ideas and innovative approaches in the area of urban transformation and housing, and to contribute to the creation of a think-and-do tank specialized in public policy in Mozambique.

Three years ago, he started Casa Minha Lda. with his brother and a small group of Mozambican architects and engineers.

Gizem Caner is a lecturer at Cyprus International University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture. She holds a PhD degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Istanbul Technical University with an emphasis on the spatiality of conflict, multiculturalism, and post-conflict planning. She has professional experience in disaster risk management, urban regeneration, and master planning in numerous Istanbul districts. She was involved in a capacity-building exercise for Gaza and the West Bank, under the joint forces of UNDP, UN-Habitat, and ISOCARP.

Jovana Carapic holds a PhD in Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Her dissertation aimed to unpack the state–armed group relationship. Since completing her doctorate, Jovana has been working for the Small Arms Survey where she is an active member of the ‘Weapons and Markets’ cluster and Gender Focal Point of the Small Arms Survey. She also holds an MA in Political Science and a BSc. in Psychology and Political Science from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada.

Emily Castro Pietro is a specialist in climate change and has worked on various GIZ projects since 2012, mainly in the areas of mitigation, monitoring, reporting and verification mechanisms, as well as urban environmental management and waste-to-energy. Currently, she coordinates the VICLIM Project in Mexico to strengthen the role of subnational actors in the achievement of the national climate objectives. Trained as a chemical engineer, Emily holds a Master’s degree in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge.

Shivani Chaudhry has been working with Housing and Land Rights Network in New Delhi, India, since 2004. Before that, she worked with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington, D.C., USA. She was a member of the Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development's Task Force on Land Reforms. She has been involved with developing tools and standards to monitor housing and land rights, and writes and speaks on these issues regularly.

Marty Chen is the International Coordinator of WIEGO, a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Affiliated Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design. An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are employment, gender, and poverty with a focus on the working poor in the informal economy. Before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident experience in Bangladesh working with BRAC (now the world's largest non-governmental organization) and in India, where she served as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh.

Dr. Youngha Cho is a senior lecturer in the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, UK. Previously she worked at the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research University of Cambridge and the Korean Research Institute for Human Settlement in South Korea. She holds a PhD in Housing Economics from the London School of Economic. Her research expertise lies in housing and land policy, micro analysis of housing market and housebuilding industry, residential mobility, housing finance and mortgage market, housing need and affordability. Her current work includes housing policy and market analysis of US, Japan and African countries.

CDIA is an international partnership initiative established by the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Germany in 2007. It receives additional core funding support from the governments of Austria, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as the Shanghai Municipal Government. Aside from working with at least 117 cities, from 2007 until 2016, CDIA has also completed 109 Pre-Feasibility Studies; and directly linked 52 projects to finance. In total, CDIA’s urban development measures have an estimated investment value of USD 6.0 billion.

William Cobbett ist Direktor der Cities Alliance. Bevor er dort 2001 anfing, arbeitete er beim Programm für menschliche Siedlungen der Vereinten Nationen in Nairobi. Zuvor hatte William Cobbett den Posten des Nationalen Koordinators der Abteilung für kommunale und regionale Verwaltung sowie Wohnungswesen in Südafrika inne, und war Direktor für Wohnungswesen in Kapstadt.

Marco Dall’Orso is Chief Operating Officer at Arexpo, the public-sector company in charge of the urban regeneration of the 1 million sqm former Expo Milan 2015 site. In this role he is orchestrating the transformation of the site into "MIND - Milano Innovation District", a catalyst for sustainable socio-economic growth, a new vibrant community fully integrated with the city centre of Milan. The mission is to create a unique, competitive national platform able to attract talents, businesses, universities, research centres and capital at global level. Before joining Arexpo he held senior executive positions with leading real estate development and asset management organisations internationally. He holds a Civil Engineering degree, Laude, from University of Genoa, a Master of Science, Distinction, from Imperial College in London and an MBA Valedictorian from IMD in Lausanne. He has over 25 years combined experience in commercial real estate, infrastructure and environmental projects. He is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Aniruddha (Ani) Dasgupta is the Global Director of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. Prior to joining WRI, Ani served at the Director of Knowledge and Learning at the World Bank, where he provided leadership and direction for the Bank’s role in offering knowledge services for development. Ani holds a Masters Degree in City Planning and a Masters Degree in Architecture, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His PhD work, at the planning school at MIT, focused on services for urban poor.

Christopher Dekki is a stakeholder engagement consultant for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, supporting countries undergoing their Voluntary National Reviews. He has also worked for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, coordinating national SDGs workshops, and supporting the HLPF. As the former Policy Analysis and Advocacy Officer of the Communitas Coalition, Chris has worked closely with many stakeholders to bridge policy gaps within sustainable development processes. He was also deeply engaged in advocacy in Habitat III. Finally, Chris is an adjunct professor of political science at St. Joseph's College in New York.

Dana de la Fontaine works with the Good Financial Governance Program at GIZ Mozambique. Her focus lies on decentralization and local government development. In the context of the cooperation between GIZ and Cities Alliance, her main objective is to support the national dialogue between national and local governments as well as actors of civil society, aiming at the development of a national urban agenda. De la Fontaine is a political scientist and holds a PhD in International Relations.

A sociologist by training, Sonia refers to herself as a “garbologist” and specialises in solid waste management. Sonia has been active in the field in Brazil since 1985 with a focus on promoting the integration of social inclusion aspects into the technical planning of waste collection and recycling. Through her graduate studies and PhD she has delved deeply into the role of participation in solid waste management in Brazil and the role of the local governments in strengthening waste pickers' organisations in Belo Horizonte City. She is WIEGO´s waste specialist at the Urban Policies Programme.

Eva Dick is a senior researcher at the Department of Environmental Policy and Natural Resources at DIE working on urban development, urban/regional governance, urban informality and migration, among other topics.

Felix Dodds is co-director of the 2018 Nexus Conference and author of a new book, Power to the People, co-author of Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals, and co-editor of The Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus.

Felix Döhler is an Urban Policy Advisor with GIZ’s Global and Sector Programmes Department in Bonn. He supports the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), specialising in urban climate change issues. Apart from this, he is affiliated with the Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA).

Felix’s previous occupations include five years as a freelance consultant, researcher, and facilitator as well as four years as a GTZ programme manager in China.

Juliana Echeverri holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology. She is especially interested in how the relationship between nature and human beings is constructed. Working in sustainable environmental projects for GIZ since 2016, she is currently involved in a conservation project for biodiversity in protected areas, building local authority capacities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. In the past, she worked with the Ministry of the Environment, National Natural Parks, the National Research Institute of Biodiversity of Colombia and other national and international organizations. Among the different projects aiming to mainstream biodiversity and ecosystem services in urban planning and land-use was the biodiversity proposal for the city of Medellín.

Charles Ogheneruonah Eghweree lectures at the Political Science Department at the University of Benin, Nigeria. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom. His research interests cover International Relations, Development Studies, discourses on African Development, and migration as well as youth and security in Africa.

Katrin Eisenbeiß is a Policy Advisor at GIZ and part of the Sector Project "Sustainable Development of Metropolitan Regions". Her current focus of work is on integrated urban development, resource management and city region food systems. Before joining GIZ, she worked with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) in Stuttgart for the research project "Morgenstadt – City Insights" at the interface of mobility and governance. She obtained her Master’s Degree in Regional and Urban Research with a focus on international development cooperation and transport planning at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Ruth Erlbeck has worked for the GIZ in Ethiopia, Mongolia and South America. She currently works as a project manager of the regional "Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities: the Urban Nexus Project".

Ralph Trosse has a background in civil engineering and architecture. He has worked in many development projects in Benin, El Salvador and Nicaragua among others. He currently works as a technical director of the "Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities: the Urban Nexus Project" in Bangkok.

Kathrin Faltermeier arbeitet seit 2015 als Juniorberaterin im CoMun-Büro in Tunis, insbesondere zum Themenfeld Bürgerbeteiligung in tunesischen Kommunen.

Ana Falú, Architect, Professor and Researcher, is the Director of INVIHAB Research on Housing and Habitat Institute and Director of the Master Course on Housing Management and Development at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of Córdoba, Argentina. She is also the co-founder of the Women and Habitat Network and the network’s Focal Point in Argentina, and coordinates the UNI UN Habitat Gender Hub. Between 2002 and 2009, Ana Falú was Head of UNIFEM (today UN Women), first for the Andean Countries and later for Brazil and the South Cone countries. She studied at the National University of Tucuman in Argentina and completed her doctoral studies at Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands.

Gero Fischer ist Redakteur beim Vorwärts Verlag. Einer seiner Schwerpunkte ist dabei Kommunalpolitik.

Alessandro Galimberti is a Senior Social and Economic Development Specialist with a masters degree in Economics. He spent the first part of his professional career as Marketing and Commercial Director in different international companies. During the last ten years, he has worked in Africa as Country Director and Team Leader for the AVSI Foundation, a leading NGO in the sector of slum upgrading, education and renewable energies. For AVSI, he has supervised the strategy design, the startup and management of ICSs production and distribution activities in different countries such as Mozambique, Uganda and the Republic of the Congo.

Ebru Gencer is the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Urban Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience, an independent research organisation based in New York City. She is an urban planner specialized in disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and sustainable development. Dr Gencer is also the Co-Chair of the Urban Planning Advisory Group to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from Columbia University, New York.

Michael Glotz-Richter is Senior Project Manager of “Sustainable Mobility” at the City of Bremen, Germany. As such, he is responsible for several innovation projects in the field of sustainable mobility. He also reviewed the European RTD projects “Citymobil” and “Citymobil2” on autonomous vehicles. As a trained urban planner (SRL), he has a special interest in the interaction between built environment, human behaviour and technical/technological development.

Ronaldo “Onal” Golez is the mayor of Dumangas, Philippines. He already served as the city’s mayor from 2007 to 2013 and was re-elected in 2016. He launched several initiatives to build climate resilience in his city. Under mayor Golez, Dumangas signed the campaign "Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready" and entered a municipal climate partnership with the city of Herdecke in Germany. Before entering politics, he was an artist.

Verena Goranko advises the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) on the topic of sustainable development of metropolitan regions. Her focus is on urban and metropolitan governance in the field of development cooperation. Within her work she deals with key questions of institutional arrangements, inter-municipal cooperation and managing rural-urban linkages in order to create inclusive, livable and sustainable urban areas. Verena holds a Masters’ degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Malmö University, Sweden.

Dr. Limota Goroso Giwa is a prolific writer, grassroots women leader, and community organiser. Presently, she is the convener of The City we Need and the Urban Thinkers Project in Nigeria. The Urban Thinkers project is an initiative of the UN Habitat World Urban Campaign.

Dr. Gorosa Giwa has written several books and articles in local and international journals, and has received several local and international awards, namely the Rear Germ Award in 2003 by UNIFEM, the ASHOKA Award for social entrepreneurship in 2001. She was also among the 1000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Anja Graner holds a BA in Landscape Architecture from the Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil, Switzerland. She is currently studying for a Master’s degree in the Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design Program at Stuttgart University. Anja has a strong interest in urban life and the interactions between built environment, people and their quality of life.

Julie Greenwalt is responsible for the Cities Alliance portfolio on climate change, environment and resilient cities, including the Joint Work Programme on Resilient Cities, and is one of the Organizing Committee co-chairs for the Cities and Climate Change Science Conference. She holds an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University and a B.A. in International Relations, Spanish and Philosophy from Tulane University.

Alexis Gueu is a social entrepreneur, consultant in public speaking, cyber-activist and writer from Cote d’Ivoire. He founded the Cote d’Ivoire Young Leaders Association and is its chairman.

Madina M. Guloba is a development economist, with a PhD in Economics from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, under the Collaborative Postgraduate Programme of the African Economic Research Consortium. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow and head of the Microeconomics Department at the Economic Policy Research Centre in Uganda She has more than nine years of research experience in the field of development economics, gender, climate change, education, environment, natural resources, and labour markets. Madina is a member of the International Association for Feminist Economics and member of the National Subcommittee of Evaluations in the Office of the Prime Minister.

Ulrich Gunka works as freelance journalist and photographer. One of his main commissioning parties is the climate municipality of Saerbeck, Germany. Since 2013, he is continuously following the local development of the town.

Jean-François Habeau is Executive Director of FMDV, the International Alliance of Local Governments dedicated to promoting and developing solutions to finance urban development and local economic development.

Sabine Hammer, journalist and freelance correspondent, is specialised on municipal development cooperation, sustainability and conflict management. The German Federal President awarded her the First Media Prize on Development Policy of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). She is Special Advisor to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. José Ramos-Horta.

Mariaflavia (Nina) Harari is an Assistant Professor of Real Estate at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, specialising in urban economics and development economics. Her research agenda is centered on urbanisation in developing countries. Her current projects focus on urban structure in India and slums in Indonesia. She holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. and a M.Sc. in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University.

Mr. Hari represents Kochi Metro Rail Ltd., a joint venture company of Govt. of India and the provincial Govt. of Kerala. He is working since inception of the company and presently designated as Additional General Manager-Urban Transport.He is a mechanical engineer with railway engineering and public transportation background, served in the mainline railway projects, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. and in the Automotive testing & validation infrastructure project, prior to joining Kochi Metro Rail Ltd in 2012.

Graduated from Sciences Po in Paris, Joséphine Hébert a French-Brazilian young professional working internationally on urban governance. After more than one year working in Mozambique with UN-Habitat and GIZ's Good Financial Governance Program, she will now move to Egypt to work there on urban sustainable development.

Claudia Hermes sammelte Arbeitserfahrungen in mehreren deutschen Unternehmen und im Deutschen Bundestag, bevor sie vor zehn Jahren zur GIZ stieß. Seither war sie für die GIZ an verschiedenen Standorten in Ost- und Westafrika tätig, u.a. als Landesdirektorin für Mauretanien. Seit 2016 leitet sie von Manila aus das Programm Cities Development in Asia (CDIA), ein gemeinsames Projekt der Asiatischen Entwicklungsbank (ADB) und des Bundesministeriums für wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit (BMZ).

Dr. Peter Herrle is Professor Emeritus for International Urbanism. Until 2012 he was director of the Habitat Unit at Technische Universität Berlin. His research focus is on urban informality, urban governance, housing and mega-urban regions. He is Advisory Professor at the Tongji University Shanghai and a consultant to bilateral and international development agencies. He is founding editor of the ‘Habitat International Series’ at LIT-Publishers and co-editor of ‘Megacities and Global Change’ series at Steiner Publishers.

Dr. Ralitsa Hiteva is a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. She is a geographer and a member of the Sussex Energy Group and the Infrastructure group at SPRU. Her research in the past 5 years has been focused on nexus interactions between resources, infrastructure sectors, and governance.

Sara Hoeflich works for UCLG, United Cities and Local Governments, the voice and network of cities and regions. She is in charge of the UCLG portfolio on decentralized cooperation and city to city learning (director cooperation). She started working at United Cities and Local Government in 2006, after almost 10 years joining German Development Cooperation in Indonesia and Colombia -in the field of urban planning and management - and after being active in several German urban design projects and engaging in development NGO.

Dr. Rene Peter Hohmann works as a Senior Urban Specialist at the Cities Alliance (CA) Secretariat, hosted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). He is managing a Joint Work Programme on Promoting Equitable Economic Growth in Cities, chaired by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Between 2004-2013, he worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in the fields of decentralisation and urban governance. Based on his own field research, Policy Press published his book analysing and comparing the impact of national urban initiatives for deprived urban areas in England and Germany in 2013. He holds a PhD in Geography from King’s College London as well as a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from Humboldt University Berlin.

Cornie Huizenga is the Secretary General of the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), the largest multi-stakeholder partnership working on sustainable transport. The SLoCaT Partnership plays a lead role in the integration of sustainable, low-carbon transport in global policies on sustainable development and climate change, especially the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Mark Major is a Senior Advisor to the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT). His focus is on the global sustainable development processes and the developing “action agendas” resulting from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Habitat III. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Transport Science (Ministry of Transport) in Beijing. Previously, he was the Team Leader for Sustainable Urban Mobility for the European Commission.

Jisun Hwang is Senior Climate Advocacy and Policy Officer at ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.She supports the coordination of ICLEI’s global policy and advocacy on climate change, actively following and coordinating ICLEI’s engagement in the framework of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).She conducts advocacy, represents the ICLEI network in climate negotiations, and has regular communication with the UNFCCC Secretariat. She also supports ICLEI’s focal point role of the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) and engages with the Friends of Cities and Regions at the UNFCCC.

Festus Imuetinyan holds a PhD in Political Science. He is a research consultant and facilitator specializing in issues regarding Nigeria’s government and administration.

Oje Ivagba is Executive Director at the Youth Empowerment & Development Initiaitve (YEDI), a nonprofit that provides comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services to in–and–out-of-school youth, using the Grassroot Soccer SKILLZ methodology. Prior to his present role, Oje has spent over a decade leading highly reputed nonprofits in Nigeria. His most accomplished projects have been dealing with youth and community development, leadership skills, ethics and value reorientation, and employability skills.

Alexander Jachnow leitet das USP (Urban Strategies and Planning) im Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS). In seiner Forschung und Lehre konzentriert er sich auf die Herausforderungen und Chancen von Urbanisierungsprozessen im globalen Süden. Er repräsentierte das IHS und dessen akademische Netzwerke bei der Erarbeitung der New Urban Agenda und während der HABITAT Konferenz in Quito.

Ravi is an urban geographer and currently supports the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in the field of sustainable development of metropolitan regions. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Geography from Goethe University Frankfurt and has been studying in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Berlin.

JIRAMA (Jiro sy rano malagasy) is Madagascar’s national state-owned electric utility and water services company. Playing a predominant role in the electricity and water sectors, JIRAMA has an important part in the economic and social development of the country. The company provides almost exclusively public water and power services for the whole island and a population of 13 million. Headquartered in Antananarivo, it serves 334.000 clients for electricity in 114 localities and 65 water distribution centres.

Marina Joseph has been working on issues of urbanisation, poverty and habitat in India. She is a campaigner for people’s rights in urban spaces, focusing on participation and inclusion in housing, urban planning and governance. She was the Regional Focal Point (South and Central Asia) for the Habitat III process within the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth.

Yang Jun was the Deputy Mayor of the Huaibei Municipal People’s Government from 2007 to 2014. Afterwards, he worked as Board Chairman of Wanbei Coal Electricity Group Co., Ltd until he became Mayor of the Suzhou Municipal People’s Government in 2016. He has a degree in Mining Engineering from Fuxin Mining Institute, and holds a PhD in Management Science and Engineering from China University of Mining and Technology.

Farah Kabir has been working with ActionAid Bangladesh as Country Director since June 2007. More than 21 years of experience in the field of development and research have made Farah Kabir a renowned human rights figure at home and abroad with an uncompromising voice against human rights violations. As Country Director, she has taken up new initiatives such as women-led emergency and humanitarian response, and the first ever Water Museum in South Asia located in Kuakata. She represents civil society at high levels both internationally and nationally, for instance for the CSO dialogue at the UN, the Sendai Framework, and the High-Level Political Forum.

Lalitha is an urbanist and Associate Professor at the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her first book, Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban Governance (Routledge Cities and the Urban Imperative Series, 2013, co-edited with K. Coelho and M. Vijayabaskar) focused on a critical exploration of emerging discourses and practices of "citizen participation" in urban governance reforms in India. More recent work has focused on the violence of becoming urban in the global south ("The Violence of Worlding Producing Space in Neoliberal Durban, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro,” Economic and Political Weekly 2017, co-authored with Himanshu Burte).

Lennard Kehl is currently working as an Development Advisor for the Urban Development Unit of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Ghana. Before that, he worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in the Unit for Monitoring and Evaluation + Wastewater Management Programme in Vietnam and for the DAAD Expert Network for Urban Future in Southeast Asia.

Ramin Keivani is Research Lead and Professor of International Land Policy and Urban Development at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is an urbanist with a particular research interest in low income housing policy and urban sustainability in the Global South. He has researched and published widely on these and other related areas including interface of economic globalization and land markets and their impacts on urban equity and spatial development. He is also the founding and managing editor of the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development and sits on the steering group for the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign.

Daniel Kerber is the founder of More than Shelters. For 18 years, he has been working on the interconnections of planning, architecture, and design with people living in slums and refugee camps. Before embarking on the path of humanitarian innovation, Daniel Kerber worked as an artist and designer, and taught Social Design at the Hamburg School of Fine Arts (HBFK).

Die KfW Entwicklungsbank betreut im Auftrag der Bundesregierung die finanzielle Zusammenarbeit Deutschlands mit Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern in Afrika, Asien, Lateinamerika, dem Nahen Osten und dem Kaukasus. Die Schwerpunkte bilden dabei Projekte, die darauf zielen, Armut zu bekämpfen und die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung zu fördern, Maßnahmen im Bereich Klima- und Umweltschutz zu unterstützen sowie Menschen Zugang zu gesundheitlicher Versorgung und Bildung zu ermöglichen.

Prabha Khosla holds a master’s degree in urban planning and has over 15 years of experience working in cities with women, communities, local governments, public utilities and other urban stakeholders. Her work has been focused on urban sustainability, gender equality and pro-poor planning and governance, water and sanitation, participatory and environmentally sensitive planning, gender mainstreaming, development of training materials on urban and gender issues, and capacity development of elected officials, municipal staff, and civil society partners on sustainability, gender, governance, and water and sanitation.

Hanna Klein holds a BA in Social Science of the Leibniz University of Hannover. Currently, she is finalising an MA in Sociology at FLACSO Ecuador, specialising in topics on development, migration and urban studies, among others.

Chris Kost leads ITDP’s initiatives in Kenya, Uganda, and other African countries. Prior to setting up the ITDP Africa office, Chris was involved in projects in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Jharkhand, covering areas such as bus rapid transit, street design, parking management, and transit-oriented development. Chris was involved in a number of TOD projects, including the Local Area Plan for Ahmedabad’s Central Business District, an updated TOD policy for BRT corridors in Pimpri Chinchwad, TOD planning efforts for Chennai’s metro and suburban rail networks, and TOD elements in Nashik’s new Development Plan. In Cape Town, Accra, and Johannesburg, he assessed the impacts of proposed BRT systems on greenhouse gas emissions. Chris received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental policy from the Earth Systems Program at Stanford University.

Daniela Kostadinova has been a project manager with the “Municipal Economic Development in Eastern Serbia” project since its onset in 2008. She has provided technical assistance to partner municipalities in various fields, thereby promoting economic development and good governance. In 2012, she took over the project’s monitoring and evaluation responsibilities, including the gender equality component. Daniela Kostadinova would like to thank Natasa Ristic, who was actively involved in drafting this article.

Mr Krishnan is currently the Principal Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu’s Housing and Urban Development Department. He holds full additional charge as Managing Director of the New Tirupur Area Development Corporation, Vice Chairman in-charge of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, and Chairman at Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board. He holds a master's degree in economics and is a member of the Indian Administrative Services.

Petra Kuenkel is an author and leading strategic advisor to pioneering international multi-stakeholder initiatives that tackle common goods and sustainability issues. As a Member of the Club of Rome and the Executive Director of the Collective Leadership Institute, she promotes the scaling-up of collaboration skills for change agents from the private sector, public sector and civil society. She is a pioneering thinker on re-inventing leadership as a collective competence. Petra Kuenkel is the author of the ground-breaking publication “The Art of Leading Collectively” (Chelsea Green, US, 2016).

Isabel Küppers arbeitet seit Mai 2015 als technische Beraterin für das Projekt "Stärkung ausgewählter Kommunen im Umgang mit Migration und Flucht" in Marokko. Von 2012 bis 2015 war sie als technische Beraterin für GIZ-Projekte im Bereich Dezentralisierung in Burkina Faso und Benin tätig, wobei der Fokus ihrer Arbeit auf Bürgerbeteiligung and Anti-Korruptionsmaßnahmen auf lokaler Ebene lag. Bevor sie bei der GIZ anfing, arbeitete Isabel Küppers für zwei Jahre ehrenamtlich für den Flüchtlingsrat Berlin. Sie erwarb ihren Studienabschluss in Politikwissenschaften und Romanischer Philologie an der Freien Universität Berlin und ein Zertifikat in nachhaltiger Entwicklung von der Universität Kaiserslautern.

Dr. Mathew Kurian heads the Capacity Development and Governance (CDG) Unit at United Nations University (UNU-FLORES) in Dresden, Germany. Mathew has previously held faculty positions at University College London (UCL), UK and UNESCO-IHE, Delft besides working with The World Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) in Sri Lanka, Laos and Ethiopia.

Alexandra Kurth joined Cities Alliance in March 2014 and works as a Senior Urban Specialist in the Programme Unit. She is the most recent in a long line of GIZ staff that have been very successfully seconded to the Cities Alliance Secretariat. She is the Task Manager for the Ghana Country Programme and the focal point for the Habitat III Joint Work Programme. She also provides support to the Latin America and Caribbean Region and the Resilience Joint Work Programme.

Dr. Peter Kurz has been the Mayor of Mannheim, Germany since 2007. In the run up to Habitat III, Mannheim hosted an Urban Thinkers Campus on “Urban Citizenship in a Nomadic World”. Dr. Kurz is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Parliament of Mayors and represents Europe on its Steering Committee. He has a background in law, having served as a judge at the administrative court in Karlsruhe for several years.

Kaj Fischer works as a Project Manager in the field of urban transformation, focusing on urban governance and local climate action. In his work, he develops strategies to advance this policy field and designs concepts and instruments for multi-stakeholder dialogues.

Dr Taibat Lawanson is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Lagos, Nigeria where she leads the Pro-Poor Development research cluster, and serves as acting director of the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.

Her research interests include urban informality, pro-poor development, urban governance, environmental justice as well as formal - informal linkages in African urban contexts.

Stephen Leahy is an award-winning author and environmental journalist based in Canada who writes for National Geographic, The Guardian, Vice Motherboard, Al Jazeera, Mo Magazine (Brussels), TerraGreen (India), China Dialogue, Ecologist, Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) and more. He is a co-winner of the United Nations Global Prize For Climate Change And Environment Reporting. His critically-acclaimed book, “Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use To Make Everyday Products” received a national award as the Best General Audience Science Book.

Dr. Christine Lemaitre is CEO of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB). She was born in Gießen, Germany, and studied structural engineering at the University of Stuttgart. After working in the USA, she started working at the Institute of Lightweight Structures Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart in 2003. In 2007, she started working at Bilfinger Berger AG as project manager for research and development. In January 2009, she took on the role as director system of the DGNB and was appointed the CEO of the German Sustainable Building Council in February 2010. She has been on the Chair of the Europe Regional Network since 2015 and a member of the Board of Directors of the World Green Building Council since 2016. She is also a member of the Advisory Council for Baukultur of the State of Baden-Württemberg and of the Sustainability Board of the German Property Federation (ZIA).

Dan Lewis is the Chief of the Urban Risk Reduction Unit, UN-Habitat. He has worked for UN-Habitat since 1997 based in Somalia, Kosovo and Nairobi, and has managed the global portfolio of disaster and conflict related work of the Agency since 2002. As a civil engineer and private consultant, he has worked in urban reconstruction and housing programmes in South Africa and Chile as well as with First Nations communities in his home region on Vancouver Island, Canada since 1987. He is currently leading the UN-Habitat global Urban Resilience Programme designing new standards for measuring and monitoring the resilience of cities. The City Resilience Profiling Programme, and its associated projects and team, are based in the Risk Reduction Unit’s programme office in Barcelona, Spain.

Astrid Ley ist Direktorin des internationalen Masterprogramms "Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design (IUSD)". Ihre Expertise und ihre Publikationen liegen in den Themenfeldernder Urbanisierung im globalen Süden, Prozessen des Wohnungsbaus sowie der Rolle kommunaler Regierungsführung und der Zivilgesellschaft.

Alexandra Linden unterstützt zur Zeit die Dezentralisierungsreform und den Prozess der regionalen Entwicklung in der Ukraine im Auftrag der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ GmbH).

Clarisse Cunha Linke has 17 years’ working experience in Brazil, Mozambique, and Namibia. She holds a MSc in Social Policy from the London School of Economics. Until 2011, Clarisse was a BEN Namibia director, developing the largest community-based bicycle distribution network in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010, she won the Ashoka Changemakers Challenge "Women, Tools and Technology". She is member of the Board of Directors to the Network for Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), Transporte Ativo, and Casa Fluminense. She has a seat in the Fórum Brasileiro de Mudanças Climáticas, Transport Advisory Boards to City Rio de Janeiro and the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region.

Todd Litman is founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems. His work helps expand the range of impacts and options considered in transportation decision-making, improve evaluation methods, and make specialized technical concepts accessible to a larger audience. His research is used worldwide in transport planning and policy analysis.

Max Lohmann is a Policy Advisor at GIZ and part of the sector project on urban development. He focusses on international policy processes, including the Habitat III preparatory process. Before joining GIZ he was an analyst for the UNOPS Partnerships Office in Washington, D.C. He obtained his Master’s Degree in International Relations and Economics with a focus on Conflict Management from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Mieke Lopes Cardozo is an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam in International Development Studies. Her research and academic teaching is focused on the role of education in relation to social justice and peacebuilding. She co-directed the Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding (2014-2016), is a member of the Advisory Committee of Experts for a UN mandated study on Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security, and co-chair of Conflict, Education and Emergencies SIG.

Rosario Loayza is an architect with a Masters degree in anthropology. She has work experience in South America and Africa. Since 2007, she has been working in the EnDev programme where she is responsible for the overall activities of the programme and for advising and supporting the government and implementing partners.

Markus Maier ist Entwicklungsberater beim Reformprogramm zur Kommunalentwicklung mit Sitz in Ramallah. Er arbeitet zur Institutionalisierung von Social Accountability in den palästinensischen Gebieten. Bevor er bei der GIZ anfing, arbeitete er am United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) und entwickelte Trainingskurse für Diplomaten aus Entwicklungsländern. Maier studierte im BachelorPolitik- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und schloss sein Studium mit einem Master of Science in "International Conflict and Cooperation" an der University of Stirling ab.

Sneha Mandhan is an urban planner, urban designer and architect who has worked on several urban planning, environmental planning, and urban design projects in the US and India. She is a graduate of the Master in City Planning program at MIT, where she received the Flora Crockett Stephenson Writing Prize for her thesis on 'Designing Indian Streets as Social Public Spaces – Contextual design and planning in Bangalore'. Her research focuses on the integration of physical form with social and cultural forces within cities, disaster resilient planning, community engagement, and spatial planning pedagogy.

Luis Marinheiro has worked in both the public and private sectors of the waste management for well over 15 years. He holds an Environmental Engineering Degree from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and a Biological Engineering MSc from the University of Minho, Portugal. Since 2014 he is Chair of the Working Group on Landfill at the ISWA.

Born 1956 in Bogotá, Colombia, Franz Marré joined the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in 1989 after having studied Law in Bonn. Since 2014 he is head of the division responsible for Water, Urban Development and Transport which also includes Waste Management and cross-sectoral issues (the “Nexus”). Before, he headed the BMZ Infrastructure Division.

Prior positions in the BMZ included the Southeast Asia section (a.o. coordination of the German Post-Tsunamireconstruction assistance in the Indian Ocean), the Organisation division, the Latin America desk (desk officer for Peru, Ecuador and Colombia) and private sector cooperation.

He was posted in Washington, D.C. at the Interamerican Development Bank in 1991-1992 and served as Development Counsellor at the German Embassy in Pretoria from 1994 to 1998.

Franz Marré is married and has three children.

Cathy McIlwaine has been researching gender and international development issues for over 25 years with reference to poverty, violence, employment, and migration in cities. Her research has always tried to connect across academic and policy boundaries and has entailed working with international organisations such as the World Bank and UN-Habitat as well as with smaller NGOs in the global South and the UK. She has published eleven books including most recently Dores que Liberam (with Miriam Krenzinger, Eliana Sousa Silva and Paul Heritage [2018], Attis) and Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South (with Sylvia Chant [2016], Routledge), as well as over 40 journal papers.

Francesca Romana Medda is Professor of Applied Economics and Finance at the University College London (UCL) and Director of the UCL QASER (Quantitative and Applied Spatial Economics Research) Laboratory. She serves as economic adviser to the UK Ministry of Environment and Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance. She is Vice-President of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. Her research focuses on project finance, innovative financial mechanisms and risk evaluation in different infrastructure sectors such as: transport industry, energy innovation and new technologies, urban investments (smart cities), supply chain provision and optimisation, and efficiency. Her work is published in leading academic and practitioner journals. She has worked and works actively with the private and public sector including The European Investment Bank, The World Bank, UNESCO, UN-Habitat, WILLIS Re, HALCROW, and UITP.

Guenter Meinert has extensive work experience in decentralization, local governance and urban development in developing countries. He is Programme Manager atheadquarter, advising the German Ministry of Cooperation on its urban development policies. In 2008, he was appointed honorary professor for urban management at the Berlin Institute of Technology. He began his professional career as researcher at the University of Kaiserslautern. From 2007 until 2011 he was seconded as a Senior Urban Specialist to the Secretariat of the "Cities Alliance – Cities without Slums", a global program hosted by the World Bank.

Maria Meija holds a double major / Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics and a minor in urban studies. She is currently studying Global Change Ecology (MSc.) at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). In the beginning of 2018, she completed an internship with GIZ and the Asian Development Bank in Manila (Philippines), assisting with the Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA). In the past, she worked for the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Research Institute of Biodiversity in Colombia. As part of her work for the Institute of Biodiversity, she edited the book "Urban Nature: Platform of Experiences" (2016), a thrilling project reporting on urban biodiversity in Colombia. Maria Meija is keen to learn more about networking initiatives among cities, especially in high biodiverse and urbanising regions.

Mathias Merforth ist Transportökonom and arbeitet seit 2013 bei der GIZ im Bereich Transport & Mobilität. Er ist beteiligt an dem Capacity-Building-Programm "Nachhaltiger städtischer Transport (GIZ-SUTP)", der Deutschen Partnerschaft für nachhaltige Mobilität (GPSM) and der "Transforming Urban Mobility"-Initiative (TUMI). In seiner Arbeit konzentriert sich Merforth auf städtische Mobilitätsplanung, integrierte Transportsysteme und die Finanzierung von nachhaltigem Transport. Er ist Co-Author und Manager mehrerer Studien und Publikationen von SUTP und GPSM, und unterstützt Dialogformate für internationale Kooperation in den Feldern Mobilität und Logistik.

Dirk Messner is Co-Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and director of the German Development Institute (DIE). He is one of the lead authors of the report Humanity on the move: The transformative power of cities.

Paula Meth is a Reader in the Urban Studies and Planning Department at the University of Sheffield. She works on gender, violence and housing in the global South, including South Africa and India.

Diana Mitlin is Managing Director of the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester and also holds an appointment at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Her work focuses on urban poverty and inequality including urban poverty reduction programmes and the contribution of collective action by low-income and otherwise disadvantaged groups. For the last 20 years, Diana has worked closely with Shack/Slum Dwellers International and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights. She has recently co-authored (with David Satterthwaite): Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature and Reducing Urban Poverty in the Global South.

Maria Adelaida “Laids” Mias-Cea is the Regional Coordinator of UN-Habitat’s Cities and Climate Change Initiative (CCCI) Asia Pacific. She has worked on urban development issues over the last fifteen years specialising in capacity development in the areas of disaster risk management, climate change adaptation and settlement planning.

Frank Mischo is a political scientist. As Kindernothilfe’s Advocacy Manager, he coordinates all advocacy for children’s rights. He is also part of the coordination team for Kindernothilfe’s “Safe Cities for Children” campaign, and leads its advocacy and organizes its workshops for children, youth and adults.

Rose Molokoane is National Chairperson of the South African Homeless People's Federation, their national savings coordinator, and Deputy President of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).

Joost Monks is Executive Director of NORRAG and in charge of the organisation's overall management, development and partnerships. He also serves as secretary of the International Accreditation Council for Development Studies (IAC) of the European Association of Development Institutes (EADI). Previously he served as project director for the Rector of the University of Geneva and worked as strategy consultant in a wide range of national and international public and non-profit organizations. He holds a Bachelor and a Master Degree in international relations from the Graduate Institute and obtained his PhD in political economics from the University of Geneva.

José Morales is the former National Director of Housing and Human Settlements at the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MDUVI), Ecuador.

Aris Moro serves as a Project Officer for the Cities Finance Facility at C40. Previously, Moro worked at C40 as a research assistant to the Executive Director and as a content coordinator for the C40 Cities Awards at COP21 in Paris. Prior to joining C40, Moro worked for Carbon Analytics, an environmental accounting start-up, and for ABC Trust, an Anglo-Brazilian NGO helping children in vulnerable urban environments.
Moro holds a MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation from LSE and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of York and the University of California, San Diego.

Michael Müller has been Governing Mayor of Berlin since 11 December 2014. He joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany in 1981 and was elected a Member of the Berlin House of Representatives in 1996, a capacity in which he has been serving ever since. From 2001 to 2011, he chaired the SPD parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives. In 2004, Michael Müller became chair of the SPD in the federal state of Berlin, a post that he held until 2012 and to which he was re-elected in 2016. In 2011, he was appointed Senator for Urban Development and the Environment.

Michael Müller attended a specialized upper secondary school for business and administration and completed a business apprenticeship in 1986. From 1986 to 2011, he worked as a self-employed printer. He is married and has two children.

Augustín Muñoz Del Guayo, MBA, MSc is the current director of the Instituto de Estudios Urbanos de CentroAmerica y Caribe, which is dedicated to analysing urban development and quality of life in different cities in Central America and the Caribbean. Mr. Muñoz has worked primarily in the private sector in Central America and the Caribbean, focusing on quantitative and qualitative research on different socio-economic topics.

Dr. Timo Munzinger is policy officer at the Association of German Cities (Deutscher Städtetag, DST). He focuses on integrated and sustainable urban development, urban planning, regional development, architecture and building culture. Before working for the DST, he was a project manager at STEG Stadtentwicklung GmbH in Stuttgart, Germany. He holds an MBA in Architecture Management and a doctoral degree from the University of Stuttgart.

Dr. Fernando Murillo’s work spans urban planning, housing, slum upgrading and infrastructure with governments and UN agencies with a focus on displaced communities and refugees. He worked with UN Habitat, UNDP, UNRWA and UNHCR in the Palestinian territories, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Zambia and Rwanda, carrying out urban and regional planning, shelter strategies and social housing using friendly technologies. He is the author of the background paper for the IOM World Migration Report 2015 “Migration and Urbanization Path: Reshaping the Human Geography of Latin America and the Caribbean”. As research program director at the University of Buenos Aires he developed multiple participatory territorial planning tools applied in several Latin American countries to help local governments and communities to work out an integrated and inclusive urbanisation strategy with a focus on progressive human rights.

Mary Mwangi holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Technology with a specialty in Public Relations and Marketing. She has over 5 years’ experience in community mobilisation, gender mainstreaming, prevention of sexual harassment, and project management. Mary has been working with Flone Initiative since 2014 as a Communications Officer and Program Specialist, currently spearheading the implementation of all of Flone’s programs.

Naomi Mwaura is the ITDP Communications Associate. She has over four years of experience in the public transport industry focusing on prevention of sexual harassment and violence. She is the founding director of Flone Initiative, an organisation that trains public transport operators in customer service, prevention of sexual violence, and professional development. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (Honors) from United States International University, Kenya, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Business Administration, also from United States International University.

Sarah Nandudu is Vice Chairperson of the National Slum Dweller Federation of Uganda and a Board Member of Slum Dwellers International.

Dr. Shipra Narang Suri is an urban planner with a Ph.D. in Post-War Recovery Studies from the University of York, UK. She is a Vice-President of the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), responsible in particular for technical cooperation and projects. She is also co-Chair of the World Urban Campaign, and Vice-President of the General Assembly of Partners.

Veronika Neumeier ist Stadtgeographin und arbeitet als Praktikantin bei der Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA), einem gemeinschaftlichen Projekt der Asiastischen Weltbank (ADB) und des Deutschen Bundesministerums für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), um die Erstellung von Machbarkeitsstudien für integrative Stadtentwicklung zu unterstützen. Zuvor war sie am Deutschen Zentrum für Integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) als auch am Helmholtzzentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ) im Bereich Ökosystemleistungen tätig.

Babette Never is the leader of the research group "Transforming carbon consumption patterns of the new middle classes" at the German Development Institute in Bonn, Germany. She has a research background in energy efficiency policy, behavioral economics and green industrial policy. She holds a PhD in political science from the university of Hamburg and works from an interdisicplinary perspective on sustainable production and consumption.

Jane Njagi is the Technical Manager of Nithi Water and Sanitation Company Ltd (NIWASCO). She joined NIWASCO in 2011. She oversees and coordinates the implementation of the Upscaling Basic Sanitation for the Urban Poor (UBSUP) programme in Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya. She is currently pursuing her Masters degree in Water and Sanitation at Kenyatta University Nairobi.

Matt Nohn is an urban economist and development planner with over 15 years of professional experience in more than 20 countries, including assignments with GIZ, The World Bank, UN-Habitat, the Gates Foundation and multiple universities, think tanks and grass-roots movements. His work addresses the land, housing, transportation and employment conundrum with focus on domestic resource mobilization and incremental, labor-intensive development. A Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design, he holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Dipl.-Ing. Architecture and Urban Planning from TU Darmstadt and is the promoter of Rapid Urbanism: a progressive school of thought for designing policy responses to rapid urbanization challenges.

Raphael Obonyo is an award-winning youth advocate at national, regional, and international levels. He is the co-founder of the Youth Congress, a youth-led organisation in Kenya, and has been named one of 100 most influential young Kenyans (2019) and 100 most influential young Africans (2018). He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including "Conversations about the Youth in Kenya".

Isaac Ashai Odamtten is Mayor of Tema Metropolitan Assembly and President of National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG).

Augustine I. Sadiq Okoh is the CEO of the Carbon Free Network Africa and also the Executive Director (Africa) of Worldwide Sustainable and Ecological Solutions (WSES) Wigan, UK. He has published three books that address global change governance challenges in Africa. The latest and concluding part of the trilogy is 'Pathways to a Green Economy in post-Paris Africa' (available at http://www.greeneconomicsinstitutetrust.org/books/pathways-green-economy-post-paris-africa/). He is a member of the Green Economics Institute, a think-tank on greening the economy based in Oxford.

Akinbode Matthew Oluwafemi is a social justice campaigner with over two decades experience in journalism, development, public relations and social marketing. He is currently the Deputy Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigera (ERA/FoEN), Nigeria's foremost environmental rights advocacy group. Oluwafemi heads ERA/FoEN's Tobacco Control and the Water Campaign. He has been involved in variouscapacities in tobacco control initiatives in the African region. Akinbode iswinner of theBloomberg Award forGlobal Tobacco Control. Before joining ERA/FoEN, Oluwafemi was a journalist with The Guardian, Nigeria's leading national newspaper. As a journalist, he participated actively in the press freedom struggles during the despotic rule of the late General Sani Abacha. In the past few years he has channeled energy at building the "Our water, Our Right Coalition" which is challenging water privatisation in Lagos and across Nigeria.

Khalafalla Omer is a Licentiate member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). An architect and urban planner, he holds a master‘s degree in Urban Development and Planning from the University of Manchester. He is interested in urban policy, neighbourhood planning, and housing projects. He has worked as site architect with Bayaty Architects, UAE. He has been involved in promoting inclusive housing policy for urban stakeholders in Khartoum city, in reviewing the Sudan National Urban Policy, and in reviewing the draft copy of the UK National Planning Policy Framework. He is the author of numerous academic papers related to urban development and planning.

Claudio Orrego is Mayor of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile since 2014. He graduated from Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile, with a law degree and holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.

Jane Otai is an Adolescent Health Advisor with Jhpiego and a Johns Hopkins University affiliate in Baltimore, USA. She has worked with programmes in family planning, WASH, HIV, gender-based violence and supporting youth and young mothers in urban informal settlements. Currently, Jane Otai is working with Jhpiego to ensure that sound adolescent health programmes are implemented. She has also published articles in the Huffington Post, the New York Times and on various online platforms.

Judith Owigar is an ICT Advisor at UN Habitat, Urban Basic Services Branch. She is a cofounder of AkiraChix, an organisation that seeks to increase the number of African women who use technology to create solutions. She is also the founder of JuaKali, an online micro-jobs platform that links young people to short-term jobs in Kenya’s informal sector. She holds a Masters in Applied Computing from the University of Nairobi.

Dr Oluwayemisi Adebola Oyekunle has worked as a lecturer and researcher for the past twenty-five years. The focus of her work lies on the arts, cultural and creative industries, cultural policy, indigenous knowledge, SMEs, entrepreneurship, and marketing.
She is also the founder and CEO of the “Good Reward Foundation”, an organisation that trains and empowers young people and women in fashion design, textile production, and crafts making.

Priscila Pacheco is responsible for the organization's social networks and works as content producer for TheCityFix Brasil and WRIcidades.org. She holds a bachelor's degree in Social Communications with an emphasis in Journalism from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Before joining WRI Brasil Sustainable Cities, she wrote for the newspaper UFRGS.

Carlos Felipe Pardo is a Colombian psychologist with a MSc in Contemporary Urbanism from the London School of Economics. He focuses on urban development, mobility, lighting and climate change projects in cities of the developing world. He has participated in technical consultancies in more than 30 cities in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and has coordinated and delivered more than 70 training courses on urban development, climate change, bus rapid systems, non-motorized transport, travel demand management and sustainable transport.

Perlman is the President and CEO of the Mega-Cities Project, which she founded in 1988. She is an award-winning author and speaker who has mobilized collaborative partnerships among business, government, non-profits, grassroots groups, and academia to address global and local urban issues in the worldwide. She has consulted for small organizations and large international institutions including the World Bank, USAID, UNDP, UNFPA, IADB and the Slum Task Force of the Millennium Development Goals.

Edgar Pieterse holds the South African Research Chair in Urban Policy at the University of Cape Town, where he is also the founding director the African Centre for Cities. He has recently co-authored (with Susan Parnell, David Simon, AbdouMaliq Simone): Urbanisation Imperatives for Africa: Transcending Policy Inertia.

Benno Pilardeaux is head of media and public relations of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). He is one of the co-authors of the report "Humanity on the move: The transformative power of cities".

Laura von Puttkamer holds a Master‘s degree in Urban Development and Planning from the University of Manchester. She now lives in Mexico City, working on her project cdmXberlin and blogging at parCitypatory.org.

Douglas Ragan has worked in youth development at the local, national and international level for the past 30 years. Currently he is the Chief of the Youth and Livelihoods Unit for UN-Habitat, managing UN-Habitat's global youth empowerment programme which has engaged over 350,000 youth in over 70 developing countries.

Doug has authored, co-authored, and edited 17 research and policy publications on urban youth issues, the most recent being the Global Youth-Led Development series, representing some of the first research done on youth-led agencies in the developing world. Doug holds a Bachelor's Degree in Latin American Studies and a Master's Degree in Management for Non-Profits.

Inês Macamo Raimundo holds a PhD in Forced Migration and Master in Human Geography (focus on internal migration) by the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and a Licenciatura (Bhonors) in Geography by Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique). Raimundo has taught at Eduardo Mondlane University for 25 years where she trained several undergraduate and postgraduate students in Human Geography, Geography of Population, Geography of Migration, Environment and Population and Development. She is Associate Professor and Senior Researcher of Eduardo Mondlane University. Prof. Raimundo is Representative for Southern Africa of Commonwealth Geographical Bureau (CGB) and member of International Council for Sciences (ICSU) and Regional Committee for Africa (RCA). She is a partner of Hungry Cities Partnership which is funded by SSHRC-IDRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada & International Partnership for Sustainable Societies (IPaSS).

Henrik Riedel works as Senior Project Manager for the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Germany. He is responsible for the Project “Monitor Sustainable Municipality”. Henrik Riedel holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland).

An Rubenecia ist Kommunikationsexpertin im GIZ-Projekt Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA). Hierbei ist sie für die externe Kommunikation, Networking und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit zuständig, um das CDIA Mandat zu bekräftigen, welches die Stärkung asiatischer Städten für die Entwicklung von Infrastrukturinvestitionsprogrammen hin zu nachhaltiger und gerechter Stadtentwicklung unterstützt.

David Satterthwaite is a senior fellow at IIED and visiting professor at the Development Planning Unit, University College London. Two recent books co-authored with Diana Mitlin were Urban Poverty in the Global South; Scale and Nature (2012) and Reducing Urban Poverty in the Global South (2013). Both were published by Routledge.
He was a co-ordinating lead author of the chapter on urban adaptation in the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and he is currently working with other IPCC authors on a book on how cities can combine development and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Prof. Liselotte Schebek leitet das Fachgebiet Stoffstrommanagement und Ressourcenwirtschaft an der Technischen Universität Darmstadt. Sie ist zugleich wissenschaftliche Leiterin der Fraunhofer Projektgruppe für Wertstoffkreisläufe und Ressourcenstrategie (IWKS).

Imme Scheit arbeitet seit 2012 für die GIZ und leitet das Regionalvorhaben „Kommunaler Wissenstransfer Maghreb-Deutschland“ (CoMun) am Standort Eschborn.

Stella Schroeder is a consultant working for the "Good Governance" programme of GIZ Peru. She advises local and regional municipalities on administrative processes, urban development, and public participation. She is also a university lecturer of urban planning and urban development at the University of Piura, Peru. Stella Schroeder holds an M.Sc. in Urban Planning from HafenCity University Hamburg.

Chris Scott, director, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and Professor, School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona. Dr. Scott has studied water policy issues for irrigation in urban and rural locations in many parts of India and Nepal, South and Central America, Mexico and Southwest U.S.

Gregory Scruggs writes about cities and culture. He was formerly a senior correspondent with Citiscope, where he covered the global debate leading up to the United Nations Habitat III Summit, for which a won a United Nations Correspondents Association Award in 2017. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Sarah Schneider started her career with GIZ in 2012 with an internship on disaster risk management in cities, then spent 2.5 years with the multi-donor programme Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) based in Manila, and recently transferred to Berlin to support the C40 Cities Finance Facility.

Lisa Lebershausen holds an M.A. in International Development Studies and completed the trainee program with GIZ in India where she worked on urban environmental management and climate change issues. In Colombia, she supported a foundation focusing on sustainable urbanisation. Since March 2015, she is a GIZ Advisor for cities and climate change to the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).

Franziska Schreiber works at adelphi as a Project Manager in the field of urban transformation. In her work, she primarily focuses on international negotiations processes relevant to cities, and also works on aspects of urban governance, sustainable urban development, and the intersection of city planning and social cohesion. She is the author of various studies, policy papers and recommendations, and is developing diverse dialogue formats for current political processes.

Michael Slingsby has been working in Asia for forty years with DFID, UN-Habitat and UNDP on projects that build partnerships between local government and urban poor communities to improve city and community level infrastructure and support social and economic development programmes. He has long term working experience in Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. He retired from UN-Habitat as their Country Representative in Afghanistan. He subsequently worked as a consultant at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India and for the past four years he has been working as an adviser to the Urban Planning Division at the Yangon City Development Committee on capacity building, participatory urban development and urban poverty reduction.

Terence Smith is the team leader of the Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP). He has been active in the field of urban and municipal governance in South Africa since 2003, working as a researcher, freelance consultant, civil society governance network coordinator and, since 2008, as an advisor with GIZ.

Ashok-Alexander Sridharan, born in 1965, married, three children, became Mayor of Bonn in October 2015. He graduated from law school in Bonn in 1995 and has pursued his career in local government administration. As Mayor of Bonn, Mr. Sridharan has set his path to expand networks and to strengthen Bonn as a nationally and internationally successful location and platform for global sustainability. He is deeply committed to Bonn’s role as Germany’s United Nations City and host to a great number of governmental and non-governmental organizations. Mayor Sridharan promotes the city as a business location, a hub for science and education and a place of culture and music. Mayor Sridharan feels personally committed to the goal of UN Bonn to shape a sustainable future and to the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. He actively supports the work of national and international city networks, advocating the important role of local governments, stimulating local action, and fostering city-to-city cooperation. Since December 2015, he is a member of the Global Executive Committee of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability and was elected First Vice President in October 2016.

Sophia Sünder is an advisor to the GIZ sector project Sustainable Mobility and the TRANSfer project especially in the field of communications. She holds a masters degree in European Studies from King’s College London. Previously, she has focused on communication, public relations, project management and cooperation with international partners, while working for the United Nations in Geneva, the German Embassy in Bulgaria, the German Ministry for Infrastructure of Rhineland-Palatinate or the German television channel ZDF.

Dr Cecilia Tacoli is a Principal Researcher at the Institute for Environment and Development. Her work explores how the relations between rural and urban areas, people and enterprises are transformed by urbanisation processes. She has written and edited several publications on this topic, including The Earthscan Reader in Rural-Urban Linkages, and has researched the links between migration, environmental change and urbanisation with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is especially interested in how these transform gender relations, and their impact on urban and rural food consumption and insecurity. She has served as lead/contributing author in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report.

Jiao Tang joined the ISWA in 2013. She has a BA in Accounting and Japanese Studies from the University of Sydney and an MSc in Environmental Technologies and International Relations from the Vienna University of Technology.

Natalya Tarnavchyk has been working for GIZ Ukraine since May 2014. She has also worked for the project “Municipal Development and Rehabilitation of the Old City of Lviv”, coordinating the communication and PR activities and co-organizing events such as the European Heritage Days and the Urban Workshop in Lviv. Since January 2018 she has been supporting the communication and PR activities of the GIZ's projects on good governance in Kyjiv, Ukraine.

Marlehn Thieme has been a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church (EKD) in Germany since 2003. Having joined the German Council for Sustainable Development in 2004, she held the position of deputy chairwoman from 2010 to 2012 before becoming chairperson in 2012. She was reelected in 2013 and 2016. A trained lawyer, she was employed at the Deutsche Bank AG from 1986 to the end of 2013 as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility and as a member of its Supervisory Board. Marlehn Thieme chairs the Supervisory Board of the Bank für Kirche und Diakonie (KD Bank) and also the Television Council that oversees ZDF, a German public television broadcaster. Ms Thieme is a member of the High-Tech Forum which serves the German Government as a key advisory group on innovation policy. She is also a member of the National Platform Education for Sustainable Development.

Titus James Twesige is the Country Director of the Alliance of Mayors’ Initiative on Health and HIV/AIDS in Africa, Uganda Chapter. He holds a Master’s degree in Sociology of Makerere University and a Master's in Business Administration from the Uganda Management Institute. He has over fifteen years’ working experience in senior positions with humanitarian/non-profit organisations in various countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Titus is specialised in programme and project management and policy engagement relating to matters of environment protection, health and development, and HIV/AIDS.

Ilia Varvaroussi is Greek, was born in Paris, and has grown up in Brussels. She received her MSc in Architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki before working in Tokyo and London for award-winning practices.

After building a solid base of professional experience, she decided to travel to Southern Africa to explore issues of Architecture and Development. In Mozambique, the project “Casa Minha Nosso Bairro” immediately drew her attention and she decided to work there as a volunteer for 4 months.

She now lives in London and is preparing for the next phase in her career.

María Alejandra Vicuña Muñoz, psychologist and politician from Ecuador, is currently Minister of Urban Development and Housing and Vice-President of the country. With more than a decade of experience, she has held various public positions, among them Assemblywoman of the province of Guayas and vice-president of the Permanent Specialized Commission on the Right to Health. Moreover, she formed part of the Parliamentary Group for Women’s Rights and was in charge of the Parliamentary Group for Guaranteeing the Rights of Children and Adolescents.

Auribel Villa is an advisor for urban planning at the Climate Protection in Mexican Urban Policy (CiClim) project, implemented by GIZ Mexico. She worked for almost six years at the Mexican Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) in the urban sustainability area. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Kalpana Viswanath is a researcher who has been working on issues of urban and women’s safety for over 20 years. She is the co-founder of Safetipin, a mobile app developed to support community and women's safety. She has worked as a consultant with UN Women and UN-Habitat on issues of gender and urban safety and spearheaded the Safe Delhi for Women initiative led by Jagori in Delhi, India. Kalpana Viswanath is also a board member of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC). She has provided technical support to safe city for women programmes in several Asian countries.

Maximilian Vogt works as an advisor for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in South Africa since 2015. His focus lies on youth violence prevention.

In 2015, Michael Vollmann co-founded nebenan.de, Europe's largest network for neighbourly community and solidarity. Since 2017, he also directs the nebenan.de Foundation which is a non-profit organisation supporting outstanding neighbourhood initiatives through the German Neighbourhood Award (www.nachbarschaftspreis.de) and initiating thousands of neighbourhood parties around the Eurpean Neighbours Day in Germany (via www.TagDerNachbarn.de). Martin is currently working on giving municipal and non-profit organizations access to their neighbours through nebenan.de.

Armin Wagner is Senior Transport Policy Advisor with more than 15 years of experience in designing, implementing and evaluating projects in the field of sustainable transport. His areas of specialisation are sustainable urban mobility, financing of infrastructure and international fuel prices. As part of the Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP) team, he is responsible for policy development and project management. Since 2013, Armin has headed GIZ’s sector project “Sustainable Mobility". He has gained firsthand experience by working in Ukraine, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Patrick Wakely is Professor Emeritus of Urban Development at the University of London and former Director of the Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London from 1989-2003. An architect by training, he has 40 years of experience of research, consultancy and teaching in housing, planning and urban development on which he has worked in over 20 developing countries. He has held full-time academic appointments in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United Kingdom. His recent work has been concerned with the development and impact of participatory approaches to the production of low-income group housing and slum upgrading and the local level delivery of services and the management of infrastructure in cities. He co-authored the European Commission Urban Development Policy for Development Co-operation (1999), led the drafting group for the UK DFID strategy paper ‘Meeting the Challenge of Poverty in Urban Areas’ (2001) and co-ordinated the studies for the United Nations Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 ‘The Challenge of Slums’. Recent books have included ‘Making Planning Work: A Guide to Approaches and Skills’ (with C. Hague, J.Crespin, C.Jasco, 2006) and ‘Communities and Communication: Building Urban Partnerships’ (with E.Riley, 2005). He was a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Human Settlements Research Network 2001-2005.

Esther Wegner works as an advisor for the Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP) at GIZ South Africa. She focuses on community safety aspects in urban governance and inclusive violence prevention mechanisms in cities. She also supports the South African Cities Network (SACN) in coordinating the Urban Safety Reference Group, which is a platform for structured collaborative learning, exchange and advocacy on urban safety issues among city practitioners and national government stakeholders in South Arica.

Margo Weimers is a qualified town and regional planner with 16 years’ experience in the private and local government sectors. Her experience is based mainly within the fields of housing; strategic spatial urban planning; and planning policy and legislation. She is currently working as a specialist project manager at the City of Johannesburg Public Safety department focussing on the linkages and implications of service delivery, urban management, and planning issues on urban safety in the city of Johannesburg.

Richard Weller is the Martin and Margy Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture and Co-Director of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at The University of Pennsylvania. Weller sits on the board of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) in Washington and is the founder and Creative Director of the interdisciplinary journal of landscape architecture LA+. In 2017 he was voted by ‘Design Intelligence’ as one of North America’s most admired teachers. Weller’s Design Research and Writing can be found at http://richardweller.net/design-research/.

Edmundo Werna has worked for over 35 years on different aspects of urban development with particular attention to municipal management, livelihoods, and housing. He started his career in the 1980s in field activities such as territorial planning and upgrading of low-income settlements, moving on to policy advice and academic research. Werna joined the UN in 1998 and is currently with the ILO (International Labour Office). He has been the focal point of this UN agency for the New Urban Agenda throughout the process leading to Habitat III and the subsequent deliberations after the summit. He holds a PhD in urban development from University College London (UK).

Rolf Wichmann is an international development consultant with more than 25 years of experience at the United Nations in urban policy development. Born in Germany and educated in the United States, he lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr Jorge Wolpert is Director General of Mexico's National Housing Commission (CONAVI). At the time of the interview, he worked as Executive Director of Urban Development, Land and Housing at the Ministry of Agrarian, Territorial & Urban Development (SEDATU). He studied Architecture and Renewable Energies and holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Mei Yi has served as mayor in the Jingdezhen Municipal Government of the province of Jiangxi since June 2016. Previously, she worked as vice secretary of the CPC Jingdezhen Municipal Committee and as president of the Party School of CPC Jingdezhen’s Municipal Committee. She studied management and business administration at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, receiving a master's degree in 2006.

Ms. Chenzi Yiyang is CDIA’s Project Coordinator for China. As such, she coordinates and manages all capacity development activities in China in close cooperation with CDIA’s Senior Project Development Specialist in China, and other CDIA team members.

Prior to CDIA, she has worked for four years as an urban policy research analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Beijing and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, covering topics such as land use efficiency, non-motorized transport, and financing green urban infrastructure, among others. She holds a master’s degree in Urban Planning from Sciences Po Paris and a bachelor’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China.

In 2000, Lorena Zárate started collaborating with Fomento Solidario de la Vivienda (FOSOVI), other members of the Mexico Habitat Coalition (CHM) and the Urban Popular Movement to or-ganise the first World Assembly of Inhabitants. Between 2003 and 2011, she was the coordinator of the Latin American Regional Office of Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and was later elect-ed as president of HIC (2011-2019). In 2013, she was awarded with the John Bousfield Distin-guished Visitorship from the Geography and Urban Planning Program at the University of Toron-to, Canada. Lorena studied History at the National University of La Plata, Argentina.

Monika Zimmermann has been Deputy Secretary General of ICLEI since January 2013 and works at the ICLEI World Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. Among her responsibilities is the supervision of ICLEI’s global EcoMobility Team.