Twenty Fourth Governing Council of UN-Habitat
Dialogue on sustainable urban development: the role of cities in creating improved
economic opportunities for all, with special reference to youth and gender
Wednesday April 17, 2013
Bios of moderators and panellists
Dialogue Session I: The Economics of Urban Form
Moderator:
Mr. Michael Cohen is the Director of the Graduate Program in
International Affairs at the New School University in New York,
USA. He had been with the World Bank for over 25 years where
he held senior management positions. At the time of his retirement
from the World Bank he was the Senior Advisor and the Chief of
Staff in the Office of the Vice-President for environmentally
sustainable development. He is an expert on urban development
and he has advised many governments, international development
agencies and private sector entities on many issues related to
economic development. He has contributed to preparing many UNHABITAT reports, including the State of the World’s Cities report
and the Global Report on Human Settlements. He has written many books and book chapters
and published many articles in scholarly journals on many topics related to economic
development. Dr. Cohen has a B.A. degree in politics and economy from Cornell University
and a Ph. D degree in political economy from University of Chicago, USA.
Panellists:
Mr. Juan C. Duque is a Professor at the School of Economics and
Finance at EAFIT University in Colombia since 2007. He is founderdirector of RiSE (Research in Spatial Economics), a group devoted to the
development of quantitative methods for spatial data analysis. In 2000 he
received his M.Sc. in Management and Economics from Pompeu Fabra
University (Spain), and in 2004 he received his Ph.D. in Management
from University of Barcelona. He spent the last year of his Ph.D. in the
Department of Geography at University of California at Santa Barbara,
and in 2005 he moved to the Department of Geography at San Diego State
University as a Postdoctoral Researcher. He is member of the editorial
board of Computers Environment and Urban Systems, Papers in Regional
Science and International Regional Science Review. He has consulted for
San Diego East County Economic Development Council; U.S. Defense Logistics Agency;
European Commission; Labour Department of the Government of Catalonia; Barcelona City
Council; among others.
Mr. Abdul Mannan Khan, office secretary of ruling Bangladesh
Awami League's central committee, is an eminent lawyer of the
Bangladesh Supreme Court as well as being a member of the Bangladesh
parliament. He took oath as the state minister of Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina's cabinet on January 24, 2009 and is in charge of the Housing and
Public Works Ministry. Mr. Khan has an MA degree in Mass
Communication and Journalism from Dhaka University as well as an
LLB degree. Mr. Khan has served different organizations including the
Bangladesh-Soviet Maitree Samity Bangladesh Shanti Parishad, the
Bangladesh Afro-Asia Ganosanghati Panshad and Asian Committee for
Peace and Solidarity on different capacities.
A local government representative (tbc)
Ms. Ana Falú is a Professor and Researcher at the National University
of Cordoba in Argentina. She is an architect having studied in
Rotterdam and TU Delft, Netherlands, where she obtained her
“Doktoraal” in 82. She was Regional Director of UNIFEM (UN
Women) in Andean Region from 2002 to 2004, in Brazil and the
Southern Cone countries from 2004 to 2009. Ana Falú is an academic,
a social activist and a feminist; she co-founded the Latin America
Women and Habitat Network, which is made up of organizations and
individual women committed to promoting women's rights and to
greater gender equity in the area of human settlements. She is the
founder of CISCSA – Exchange and Services Center Southern Cone Argentina and is Vice
President for Habitat International Coalition and Gender Expert for UIM - Iberoamerican
Union of Municipalists. She is also a member of the Advisory Board on gender issues to the
Executive Director of UN-Habitat.
Dialogue Session II: Land-based Financing for urban Development
Moderator:
Mr. Michael Cohen is the Director of the Graduate Program in
International Affairs at the New School University in New York,
USA. He had been with the World Bank for over 25 years where he
held senior management positions. At the time of his retirement from
the World Bank he was the Senior Advisor and the Chief of Staff in
the Office of the Vice-President for environmentally sustainable
development. He is an expert on urban development and he has
advised many governments, international development agencies and
private sector entities on many issues related to economic
development. He has contributed to preparing many UN-HABITAT
reports, including the State of the World’s Cities report and the Global
Report on Human Settlements. He has written many books and book chapters and published
many articles in scholarly journals on many topics related to economic development. Dr.
Cohen has a B.A. degree in politics and economy from Cornell University and a Ph. D degree
in political economy from University of Chicago, USA.
Panellists:
Mr. Yu-Hung Hong is the Executive Director of Land Governance
Laboratory, MIT, where he studies the use of land tools to facilitate
open and inclusive decision-making processes for land resource
allocation in developing countries. Dr. Hong earned his Ph.D. in
Urban Development and Masters in City Planning from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is today a visiting
assistant professor teaching urban public finance and he is also a
fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Dr. Hong publishes
on topics related to property rights, public land leasing, land
readjustment, and property taxation. He is the author of several
academic papers and the coeditor of several books. Dr. Hong is currently researching on (1)
the design of durable shelter solutions for internally displaced persons in the post-war era of
Iraq; (2) potential applications of participatory and inclusive land readjustment (PILaR) for
urban expansion and redevelopment in developing countries; (3) land-based financing for
public infrastructure investment and social services; and (4) the balancing of property rights
and obligations in land and housing policy discourse in the United States.
Ms. Rachelle Alterman is a professor of urban planning and law at
the Israel Institute of Technology. She is the Founding President of
the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and
Property Rights (2007-2010). With degrees in both planning and law
from Canadian and Israeli universities, she has specialized in crossnational comparative analysis of planning laws, land use regulations,
property rights and planning practice. She has published several
international books and many academic papers and served on the
Editorial Boards of leading academic journals. Based at the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology-she has also been a visiting
professor at major universities in the USA and Netherlands. In 2012,
the Association of European Schools of Planning honoured her with its Honorary Member
status (the fifth person thus honoured). Ms. Alterman also serves as a consultant and speaker
at the UN, OECD, the World Bank forums and a variety of other public bodies in Israel and
internationally (http://alterman.technion.ac.il).
Mr. Mulenga Sata is the Deputy Mayor of Lusaka, Zambia. He is an engineer by
profession.
Mr. Francisco Javier Irarrázaval Mena, Vice Minister, Ministry of Housing and Urban
Development, Government of Chile
Dialogue Session III: Jobs Creation for urban Youth
Moderator:
Mr. Joao Scarpelini is a Brazilian-Italian activist and social
entrepreneur who has been advocating for 13 years for a more
meaningful engagement of young people in decision-making processes
and as partners in development efforts worldwide. He started his
activism when he was 13. He has been working on different causes,
campaigns, projects and movements. At the age of 17, he led a
campaign to establish the Municipal Youth Council in Santos, a
platform that allows young people to advise on the youth polices and
strategies of the city. He was later elected to be a city advisor at the Youth Council for two
mandates. He was part of the UN “Making Commitments Matter” process in Brazil. Since
2004, he has been advocating with UNFCCC for the recognition of young people as a major
group at the UN Climate Negotiations, status that was finally achieved officially in
Copenhagen during COP15. From 2008 until 2012, Joao was part of two Advisory
Committees for UN-HABITAT. As the Latin American and the Caribbean representative at
UNHABITAT Youth Advisory Board, he advises the agency on its youth mainstreaming and
empowerment strategies. He is also part of the Advisory Committee which oversees the
management of the UNHABITAT Urban Youth Fund, a fund financing and championing
youth-led development worldwide.
Panelists:
Mr. Ivan Turok is Deputy Executive Director at the Human
Sciences Research Council in South Africa and Honorary Professor
at Cape Town and Glasgow Universities. He is an adviser on city
and regional economic development and planning to the United
Nations, OECD, the European Commission, governments of South
Africa and Great Britain and to the African Development Bank. His
fields of expertise include the spatial economy (regions, cities and
neighbourhoods), local labour markets and development policy. His
research on unemployment, regional development, city
competitiveness, urban regeneration and spatial inequalities is
highly cited internationally. Dr. Turok is a board member of the
Regional Studies Association and is on the editorial board of four international journals. He
has published over 100 academic papers, chapters and books, including the State of South
African Cities Report (2011), the State of English Cities Report (2006), Changing Cities:
Rethinking Competitiveness, Cohesion and Governance (2005),etc. His most recent report for
UN-Habitat is called ‘Unleashing the Economic Potential of African Cities’.
Mr. Arvinn Gadgil Eikeland is a State Secretary for International
Development at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since
2012. He has previously held positions as the Political Advisor at
the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Political Advisor at the
Norwegian Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Member of the Socialist Left Party’s International
Committee, Chairman of the Committee of experts on international
finance and trade. He holds a Master degree in Development
Studies and Economics (First-class, distinction), from the London
School of Economics and Political Science. He has gone through
the diplomat training course in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
has also worked as Higher Executive Officer in Section for South Asia and as a Personal
Assistant to the Political Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Moan Lal Grero was elected as a Member of Parliament of Sri Lanka in 2009.
Consequently, he assumed duties as Monitoring M. P. of the Ministry of Education on
December 13, 2011. Currently, he is the Monitoring M.P for the Ministry of Youth Affairs
and Skills Development on July 12, 2012. Having entered the Moratuwa University in 1974,
he graduated in 1980 with an Honours Degree in Engineering. In 1991, Mohan Lal Grero
obtained the Executive Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Colombo.
Ms. Stella Adhiambo Agara, Member of UN-Habitat Youth Advisory Board, Nairobi,
Kenya
Dialogue Session IV: Economic Empowerment of Women
Moderator:
Ms. Winnie V. Mitullah is the Director of the Institute for
Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Nairobi, where she
is also an Associate Research Professor of Development Studies.
Winnie V. Mitullah has expertise in political science and public
administration with a specialization in local governance, in
particular policies and regulations relating to provision and
management of urban services. She has taught, consulted and
conducted extensive research within Kenyan and the African
region, collaborating with a number of UN and international
agencies Her research areas include institutions and governance
with publications in the areas of urban development focusing on policies, politics, service
delivery, gender and development, associations of small scale enterprises, and poverty
alleviation.
Panellists:
Ms. Teresa Boccia is a professor of urban planning in the Faculty of Architecture and LUPT
Interdepartmental Research Centre, Federico II University of Naples, Italy. She is the founder
and the scientific director of the interdisciplinary studies centre
URBANIMA which deals with “Times Policies, Sustainable
Development, Urban Security and Quality in the gender perspective”.
She is the president of the international association AFEM (Association
Femmes Europe Méridionale) whose goal is to promote a social Europe,
based on the respect for humanity, and on the equality among women
and men. She has extensive experience working on the topics of equal
democracy and women empowerment and urban security.
Ms. Anne Beathe Kristiansen Tvinnereim is a State Secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of
Local Government and Regional Development, a position she holds since 2011. Her previous
political appointments include positions as a Political Advisor at the Norwegian Ministry of
Transport and Communications, Deputy member of the Centre Party’s
Central Executive Committee, Member of the Centre Party’s Central
Executive Committee, Council Member of Norway to the EU and
International Leader of the Centre Party Youth Organisation. She holds
a Masters degree in Political Science from the University of Oslo.
During her studies, she has worked as a Political Secretary at the Centre
Party’s head office and as a Political Advisor to the Centre Party’s
Parliamentary Group. Furthermore she has worked as a Senior
Executive Officer in the WTO section at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held
a position as the First Secretary at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Maputo.
Mr. Muchadeyi Masunda is the Mayor of Harare, the capital city of
Zimbabwe. He is a businessman with a strong background as an attorney
and arbitrator. Currently, he is serving on the international panel of
arbitrators for the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Since January 2010, he has been a member of the United
Nations Council on Local Authorities (UNACLA) and in March 2010 he
was elected Vice-President for the Southern Africa Region of the United
Cities and Local Governments in Africa (UCLGA). In October 2010, he
was elected Co-President of the United Cities and Local Governments
Worldwide (UCLG). Hon. Masunda has a proven track-record as a leader
in the professional, corporate, sporting, cultural and civic fields.
Ms. Christine Musisi is the Regional Director for UN Women in the East and Southern
Africa region. An expert on poverty reduction, civil society, gender equality and women’s
empowerment, Ms. Musisi holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration and
Management from Daystar University in Kenya and a Masters in Gender
Analysis in Development from the University of East Anglia in the
United Kingdom. She has over 20 years’ experience in senior
management, programme direction and policy advisory positions and
has pioneered innovations in social mobilization, local self-governance,
local economic development, women’s economic empowerment and
leadership and civil society empowerment. She has held in-country and
regional positions based in the United Kingdom, South Africa,
Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, and across Eastern Europe. Before
taking up her current position in 2012, she served as Deputy Country
Director in Ethiopia for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Born in
Uganda, Ms. Musisi is married with two children.