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- Keynote Speakers
- Dialogues
- Roundtables
| Dr. Anna Kajumulo TIBAIJUKA (D.Sc., Agro-Economics) UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN-HABITAT Director-General, United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) Full Biography | | | |
| Raila Amollo Odinga is Prime Minister of Kenya, serving with President Mwai Kibaki in a coalition government. A Member of Parliament since 1992, he was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and later Minister of Roads, Public Works and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main opposition candidate in the disputed 2007 presidential election. Mr. Odinga took office as Prime Minister, at the head of a national unity government on April 17 2008 after a deal brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. | | | |
| Manuel Leuterio de Castro, Jr. better known as Noli de Castro, is a politician and former broadcast journalist in the Philippines. De Castro was elected Senator in 2001 and was elected Vice President of the Philippines in 2004. He is also the current secretary for housing and urban development. He is the first elected independent Vice-President. As a senator, De Castro authored Senate Bill No. 2029 or the "Local Government Transparency Act", which aimed to end corruption through transparency measures in the local government units. | | | |
| Mr Nan Shi works in the area of urban planning, policy and research at the China Society of Urban Planning. His recent research work includes a project on Construction Standards and Urban Planning System (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction); Reconstruction Planning after Disaster (Chinese Academy of Engineering); Requirements of Further Education for the China Urban Planning Industry (World Bank) and Revival of the Cities in the Old Industrial Bases (British Overseas Funding Program). | | | |
| Khalifa ibn Salman Al Khalifah is the Prime Minister of Bahrain. He is the uncle of the reigning King, Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifah, and has been Prime Minister since 1970, originally being appointed by his brother, the then Emir, Isa ibn Salman al-Khalifa. He is the longest-serving prime minister in the world, having retained office for 37 years. | | | |
| Willem van Vliet is a professor of planning at the University of Colorado, United States of America, where he directed the Center for International Research and Education Projects from 1991 till 2001. His primary interests concern urban development, housing, the relationships between research and policy, and participatory planning and decision making. A past president of the Research Committee on Housing and the Built Environment of the International Sociological Association (1992-2007), he serves on the editorial advisory board of several leading journals and is author and editor of more than ten books, including the award-winning Encyclopedia of Housing, as well as numerous contributions to professional journals and anthologies. (Dialogue 6 - A city for all generations) | | | |
| Mr Nan Shi works in the area of urban planning, policy and research at the China Society of Urban Planning. His recent research work includes a project on Construction Standards and Urban Planning System (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction); Reconstruction Planning after Disaster (Chinese Academy of Engineering); Requirements of Further Education for the China Urban Planning Industry (World Bank) and Revival of the Cities in the Old Industrial Bases (British Overseas Funding Program). | | | |
| Grammatiki Tsingou.She is Director General of the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank. She started her professional life in the Greek Ministry of Public Works and served at the Greek Permanent Representation to the European Communities before joining the Bank in 1985. Her career in the Bank includes operational work in Southern Africa, the Baltic Countries, Poland, Russia, Greece, and Turkey, as well policy work on ACP Conventions, Mediterranean Policy, and Enlargement.
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| Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella is the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). With over 20 years experience in international development cooperation, he has provided leadership for various initiatives and promoted increased international cooperation in the field of sustainable industrial development, trade capacity building, UN-business partnerships, renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation. Dr. Yumkella currently serves as Chairman of the UN-Energy, a UN system coordination body dealing with energy-related issues.
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| Pamela Agnone.She is the Senior Vice President of Retail Services at United Nations Federal Credit Union. She directs the activities of the credit union’s Retail Services Division encompassing branch and representative office administration, consumer and mortgage lending, call centre and website fulfilment, and Investment and Insurance Centres. Ms. Agnone has over 20 years of financial services experience including senior management roles with two New York thrift institutions. | | | |
| Rita Payne recently left as the Asia Editor for BBC World TV after 29 years at the corporation. She told AIM magazine she still had a lot of energy and saw it, “as a new beginning rather than retirement”. Born in the Indian state of Assam, Rita went to Britain in 1971 and started at the BBC’s World Service Radio News as a sub-editor. In 1995 she joined BBC World TV as a producer of Asia Today and rapidly rose up the ranks to become its editor for Asia programming. | | | |
| Raquel Rolnik from Brazil is the country’s Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this regard. Raquel is well known for her previous role as National Secretary for Urban Programmes of the Ministry of Cities. In this position, she was in charge of the implementation of the City Statute, Brazil's landmark urban legislation. Raquel is an architect and urban planner, and holds a doctorate in these from the New York University. | | | |
| Stig Enemark, Denmark, Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.Former President of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), he has conducted extensive research in cadastre and land administration systems, land management, spatial planning systems and policies, professional education and the interaction between education, research and professional practice. | | | |
| Mukesh Mehta, India, Mukesh Mehta Consultants (MMC).Working to alleviate poverty and integrate the urban poor with mainstream populations through innovative housing solutions and sustainable development models, he recognizes the urban poor as a valuable human resource and strives to provide platforms for socioeconomic development, and enabling the poor to act as engines for economic growth. | | | |
| Anders Knape, Sweden, President of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.Mr Knape is acting as Vice President of the European congress for local and regional authorities, and holds the position of Vice President for the European People's party - Christian Democrats and a member of the European region committee. | | | |
| Werner Haug, Switzerland, Director of the Technical Division, UNFPA.Mr. Haug began his career with the Swiss Red Cross Society and has served in high-level positions with the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. He has often participated and worked with the Commission on Population and Development as a member of the delegation from Switzerland. | | | |
| Jockin Arputham, India, President of the Federation of Slum Dwellers in India.Mr. Arputham has worked for more than 40 years in slums and shanty towns, building representative organizations into powerful partnerships with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living. Mr. Arputham is the president of the National Slum Dwellers Foundation and of Slum Dwellers International. He was also the recipient of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding. | | | |
| Jean du Plessis.He has been a campaigner for land, tenure security, housing rights and development since 1990. He worked closely with South African communities resisting forced removal under apartheid and was the chief director of the South African land restitution programme from 1997 to 2000. He worked with the UN in East Timor in 2000 and 2001, and was a senior manager in the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions from 2002 to 2008. Jean has researched and published widely on the problem of forced evictions. He is a member of the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, convened by the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT. He currently works as an independent consultant, based in South Africa. | | | |
| Kyung-wha Kang was appointed Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2006. Her appointment is at the level of Assistant Secretary-General. Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Kang, a Korean national, was Director-General of International Organizations at the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with a portfolio that covered a wide range of UN issues, including human rights. She also served as Minister at the Korean Mission to the United Nations in New York and chaired the Commission on the Status of Women for its forty-eighth session in 2004 and its forty-ninth session in 2005, which marked the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women. | | | |
| Tayo Fashoyin.He is the Director, Social Dialogue, Labour Law, Labour Administration and Sectoral Activities Department, Social Dialogue Sector, in the International Labour Organization (ILO), Geneva. From 2005 to 2008, he was the Director of the ILO's Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa, based in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he was responsible for coordinating the delivery of ILO technical support to Member States in the region, as well a work with the regional economic community, SADC. | | | |
| Alejandra Maria Devecchi works for the Environmental Secretariat at the local government in São Paulo, leading the coordination of the Environmental Planning and Decentralized Actions Department, where she tackles daily urban and environmental problems related to poverty and management of resources. She holds a Masters Degree in Economics of Urban Development Planning from the Faculty of Economics / University College of London, England.
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| Fadi Fawaz is the Executive Director of the Hariri Group in Beirut, Lebanon. He has served as advisor to Sheikh Rafic Saad Hariri Economic & Development Advisory and as Advisor to the Lebanese Prime Minister and Presidency of the Council of Ministers. He holds a Business degree from the Harvard Business School, and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Construction and Project Management from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. | | | |
| Henrik Johansson works for the City of Växjö, Sweden. As an Environmental Controller in the city’s Planning Department, he is concerned with Växjö’s climate program, environment management system and investment programs for sustainable development. Before working for the city, Henrik was involved in an environment NGO for young people. He holds a degree in Environmental Science and Geography from Växjö University. | | | |
| Mr. Johannes Dell is an architect and urban planner with Albert Speer & Partner, (AS&P) a German urban and transportation planning company that has over forty years of experience in international planning and construction projects. He has been AS&P’s representative in China since 2003. He holds a Degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. | | | |
| Konrad Otto-Zimmermann is the Secretary General of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Urban Management and alumni of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales's Business & the Environment Programme, Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is also a board member of the International Green Purchasing Network and the International Centre for Sustainable Cities. | | | |
| Prof. Kwi-Gon Kim is the President of the International Consortium on Landscape and Ecological Engineering and the Director of the UN-HABITAT supported International Urban Training Center in Korea. The professor of Environmental Planning and Landscape Architecture at Seoul National University obtained his doctorate in Planning Studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College, University of London, England. | | | |
| Steve Bradshaw is one of Europe’s leading international journalists and documentary film-makers. He is currently Series Editor and presenter of “Life on the Edge” on BBC World – produced by Television for the Environment. Steve has made over 100 TV and radio documentaries from over 40 countries. These have included over 50 films for the BBC’s flagship “Panorama” over three decades. In the 1970s he was one of the original reporting teams of BBC Radio London, BBC Radio One's Newsbeat, BBC 2's Newsnight and BBC Radio Four's File on Four.
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| Timeyin Uwejamomere, a town planner, is the Urban Policy Officer at WaterAid, based in United Kingdom. In 2003, he established the Advocacy and Communication Department at WaterAid Nigeria. He chaired the Board of the Lagos Mainland Local Planning Authority, 1999 – 2003, preparing two communities for funding under a World Bank-Assisted Urban Renewal Programme. He was also instrumental in the drafting of a Water-Sanitation Policy in Nigeria and the establishment of the NGO network for water and sanitation.
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| Ms. Abha Joshi-Ghani is the Urban Sector Manager for the Finance, Economics, and Urban Department in the Sustainable Development Network at the World Bank. Ms. Joshi-Ghani, an Indian national, joined the Bank in 1992 as Financial Officer in the Cofinancing and Financial Advisory Services Department. In 1999, she was assigned to the East Asia Region’s Thailand Country Office as a Senior Infrastructure Specialist. Her most recent assignment was Lead Infrastructure Specialist in the Urban and Water unit of South Asia Region’s Sustainable Development Department.
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| Keshav Varma is the Chief Officer, Urban and Infrastructure Sector India, World Bank. Mr. Varma, an Indian national, was appointed Sector Manager of the Urban Development Sector Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank in October, 1997. He joined the Bank with an exceptional and pioneering record of achievement as the Municipal Commissioner of Ahmedabad, India.
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| Anver Versi is the editor of African Business a monthly magazine. He was born in Nairobi and educated in Kenya and the United Kingdom. He worked with Nation Group of newspapers in Kenya as a journalist and editor and also with the legendary Mohamed Amin of Camerapix. In the UK , he worked with several broadsheet newspapers before joining the pan-African press, first with Africa Journal then New African published by IC publications.
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| Ambassador Ali Mchumo.He has been the Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities since September 2004. He was previously the Deputy Secretary-General of the East African Community and the Permanent Representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations in Geneva and also held ambassadorial positions in the United Kingdom, Japan and Mozambique. He served as Minister of Trade of the United Republic of Tanzania from 1981 until 1983. | | | |
| In January 2006, Inga Björk-Klevby took office as Deputy Executive Director UN-HABITAT. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Björk-Klevby, had served as the Ambassador of Sweden to Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles and the Comoros and as Permanent Representative to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN-HABITAT. During this period, she was involved in restructuring the UN Centre for Human Settlements, leading to its current upgraded status as a Programme. She has also worked for more than two decades in international finance at the Central Bank of Sweden, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Cynthia Awuor works as a Research Fellow in the Energy and Water Security Programme at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in Nairobi, Kenya. She is currently involved in several research projects on climate change adaptation in Eastern and Southern Africa. Cynthia, an International Fellow of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and a Fellow of the Capacity Strengthening of the Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change for East Africa, recently studied, and published on climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation in the city of Mombasa. She also wrote a paper on capacity building for integration of climate change adaptation into policy, which informed the establishment of the START African Climate Change Fellowship Programme, and has several other publications on climate change coming up. (Researchers Roundtable) | | | |
| Rodolfo G. Biazon is a Senator in the Philippines. He became Senator in the Ninth Congress from 1992 up to 1995. He was again elected as Senator in 1998 and continues to serve in that capacity. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security and Committee on Urban Planning, Housing and Resettlement. Aside from this, he is the Vice-Chair of the Committees on Agriculture and Food and Foreign Relations, and a Member of 15 other Senate Committees. He is also the President of the Asian Regional Council of Global Parliamentarians on Habitat and the Vice-President for Asia Global Parliamentarians on Habitat. The Senator continues to draft bills which center on providing low cost housing. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Violeta Boreikiene is a member of the European Board of Directors of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat and a Member of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, where she sits on the Committee on European Affairs, the Committee on State Administration and Local Authorities, the Committee on State Administration and Local Authorities, the Committee on State Administration and Local Authorities, the Anticorruption Commission, and the Commission for Business and Employment. She also is a member of the Group of Lisbon and the Group for Interparliamentary Relations with Hungary, Canada, Taiwan, Latin America, Tibet Austria, Israel, Romania, Georgia, Kingdom of Jordan, Cuba, Singapore and the United Kingdom. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Klaus Deininger is a Lead Economist in the rural development group of the Development Economics Group, of the Wageningen University, Netherlands. His areas of research focus on income and asset inequality and its relationship to poverty reduction and growth; access to land, land markets and land reform and their impact on household welfare and agricultural productivity; land tenure and its impact on investment, including environmental sustainability, and capacity building (including the use of quantitative and qualitative methods) for policy analysis and evaluation, mainly in the Africa, Central America, and East Asia Regions. He is a German national with a Doctorate degree in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota, United States.(Global Land Tool Network Roundtable) | | | |
| Elisabet Falemo is a State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Sustainable Development, Mr. Andreas Carlgren. Her areas of responsibility include eco-management strategies and chemicals, planning and building issues, administrative cases, sustainable development and environmental integration. She holds a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering and Urban Management from the Luleå University of Technology. She has held a number of positions in engineering in her country Sweden and has also been an assembly member, Luleå Municipality. (Ministers roundtable) | | | |
| Peter Götz is the President of the Board of Directors of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat. He is a Member of the German parliament, Bundestag, and the spokesman on local government policy for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. He is also the federal chairman of the Local Government Policy Association of the CDU and CSU of Germany, a member of the Committee on Transport, Building and Housing and also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and West European Union. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Dinesh Chandra Rupasinghe Gunawardena is a Sri Lankan socialist politician. He is a Member of Parliament and a Cabinet Minister, as well as leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (People's United Front). He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Oregon, USA and has been a Member of Parliament since May, 1983. In February 2007, he was appointed Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Areas Development. He is also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee of Electoral Reforms. (Ministers Roundtable) | | | |
| Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, the World Young Women Christian Association General Secretary, has over 10 years of experience with the United Nations, where she served as Regional Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Eastern Africa, human rights officer with UNICEF as well as national child rights advisor in Liberia and Zimbabwe. For many years, she has worked in the women’s rights movement on issues of constitutionalism, inheritance, property and land rights. Gumbonzvanda also served as interim coordinator for the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association during its formative stage and in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs in Zimbabwe as a law officer. Gumbonzvanda has a Master’s degree in Private Law with specialisation in Constitutional Property Law from the University of South Africa and completed post-graduate work on conflict resolution at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is widely published and enjoys writing poetry. (Womens Roundtable) | | | |
| Raghuvir Singh Kadian is the Speaker of the Haryana Legislative Assembly in India. He is also the President, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Haryana Branch), Indian Parliamentary Association, (Haryana Group) and the Chairman, Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies (Haryana Regional Branch). He holds a doctorate in Animal Nutrition and was Agriculture Professor at Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar for 16 years. He has also served as a Minister in the Haryana Cabinet between 1987 and 1990, and held different portfolios such as Cooperation, Forest, Jails, Labour and Employment. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Agnes Kalibbala joined the WaterAid Board of Trustees in December 2006. She currently holds the position of Ambassador/Deputy High Commissioner of Uganda and the Deputy Permanent Representative to UNEP and UN-HABITAT based in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to this she was the country programme representative of Action on Disability and Development for Uganda and also supported its work in Tanzania, Ghana and Burkina Faso. She has worked on many housing projects in Uganda and has obtained post-graduate degrees and diplomas from universities in Uganda, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in this field. Ambassador Kalibbala has been on the boards of several national and international institutions.(Global Land Tool Network Roundtable) | | | |
| Malcolm Langford undertook his Lionel Murphy Overseas Postgraduate Scholarship at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. He was awarded a Master of Comparative, European and International Law in December 2001. His thesis concerned the human right to food. Since then, he has worked as a lawyer in private practice in Melbourne and as a policy officer for various human rights and development organizations, including the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and World Vision Australia. He was the inaugural coordinator of the Australian Human Rights Information Centre. Malcolm now works for the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in Geneva, coordinating a programme that assists lawyers and organisations litigating economic, social and cultural rights. He also teaches at an annual summer course in Budapest on the right to food. (Global Land Tool Network Roundtable) | | | |
| Serguei Lazarev, the Chief of UNESCO’s Struggle Against Racism Section, is a Russian citizen. The social scientist got his PhD in Economy and Social Sciences from the Academy of Sciences of Moscow, where he also developed a career which brought him to UNESCO in 1988. He was responsible for the UNESCO Unit for Tolerance when it was created under the recommendation, in 1993, of the UN General Assembly. From then on, Lazarev has achieved important international accomplishments in favor of tolerance, non-violence, mutual understanding and the fight against racism, discrimination and xenophobia, promoting many associations, partnerships and other collaborations with institutions, universities and governments all over the world. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Peter Lificiu is a member of the European Board of Directors of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat and a Member of Parliament of Romania. He is an engineer who held the position of Minister of Water and Environmental Protection in the Adrian Nastase Government from January 2002 to June 2003. After the abolition of the ministry as a result of some restructuring of the government, he became State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Water and Environment (2003-2004). (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Nalubega Mariam Patience is a Member of Parliament in Uganda, representing youth. She is a member of the committee on Information and Communication Technology, the committee on Gender, Labour and Social Development and the committee on Public Service and Local Government. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Josep Antoni Santamaría i Mateo is a Spanish politician who belongs to the governing Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, commonly abbreviated by its Spanish initials, PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español). Santamaría began architectural studies but did not complete them and subsequently worked for the Valencian regional administration in Spain. Until his election to the national parliament, he served as mayor of the town of Xirivella to the immediate west of Valencia. He also served as PSOE secretary in the l'Horta Sud area, which covers the satellite towns south of Valencia city. He was elected to the national parliament as a deputy for Valencia in 2004 and has remained a deputy since then. For the 2008 election he was placed seventh on the PSOE list (the party had won seven seats at the 2004 election) and was the fifteenth of the sixteen candidates elected. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Thom Meredith is the Director of the Canadian Field Study in Africa and McGill’s African Field Study Semester at the Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Meredith's interest is the management of ecological resources, with a particular focus on environmental impact assessment and community response to environmental change. He maintains active research on community-based environmental protection strategies that bring both scientific and local or traditional information into environmental decision-making. Current and recent research sites include mountain forest communities in Quebec, British Columbia, Mexico and East Africa. He joined the Department of Geography at McGill University in 1979 and has lived and worked in Canada, England, Mexico and Kenya. (Universities Roundtable) | | | |
| Winnie Mitullah is a researcher and a lecturer at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science and Public Administration and her Doctorate thesis was on Urban Housing, with a major focus on policies relating to low income housing. Over the years, she has researched and consulted in the areas of provision and management of urban services; institutions and governance and the role of stakeholders in urban development. Her focus in these areas has included an examination of policies, and institutional dynamics in relation to local level development, including that of Micro and Small Enterprises. She is currently a member of the UN-HABITAT Advisory Board of the Global Research Network on Human Settlements (HS-Net). (Researchers Roundtable) | | | |
| Professor Paul Munro-Faure qualified as a chartered surveyor in the United Kingdom in 1983. Most of his professional life has focused on international property issues, advising governments on land policy matters. He has worked in over 40 countries around the world and held lecturing posts at the University of the South Pacific and the Royal Agricultural College, as well as having a long history of working with Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom. | | | |
| Barbara Norman is the Research Partnerships Manager of the Global Cities Research Institute, a Research Associate with the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and an Adjunct Professor for Planning, Housing and Coastal Environments with the University of Canberra, Australia. Barbara has an extensive professional background in urban and regional planning and has worked at a senior level in the public sector, local government and has run her own consultancy. She is a Life Fellow and past National President of the Planning Institute of Australia, an Honorary Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute of the United Kingdom and a member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand. Barbara is also Vice President Australia of Eastern Regional Organisation for Planning and Human Settlements. Her research and teaching interests include urban and regional planning, housing, integrated coastal management and climate change adaptation. Barbara was the recipient of a Centenary Medal for her contribution to the community through urban and regional planning. (Universities Roundtable) | | | |
| Anita Normark is the General Secretary of the International Federation of Building and Wood Workers, an organization providing support to 287 unions, representing 10 million union members in 124 countries. Its headquarters are in Geneva with regional offices in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Eastern Europe. She has worked in the Swedish trade union movement since 1973. She joined the Construction Workers Union in Sweden in 1978. Between 1982 and 1985 she worked in the International Trade Union Movement and for the ILO in Geneva. In 1985 she returned to Scandinavia as the General Secretary of the Nordic Federation of Building and Wood Workers. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Mark Pelling is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at King’s College, London. His main research interests are in the human impacts of environmental hazards and in social adaptation to environmental risk. He has conducted research on issues of risk governance at a range of scales in the Caribbean, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. In addition to authoring numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, he is the editor of Reducing Disaster Risk: A Challenge for Development (UNDP, 2004) and Natural Disasters and Development in a Globalizing World (Routledge, 2003) and the author of The Vulnerability of Cities: Social Resilience and Natural Disaster (Earthscan, 2003). Before working at King's, he held lectureships in Geography at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom and the University of Guyana. (Researchers Roundtable) | | | |
| Christine Platt is the president of the Commonwealth Association of Planners, and past president of the South African Planning Institute.(Womens Roundtable) | | | |
| Siraj Sait is a graduate of the University of Madras, the University of London and Harvard Law School. His expertise lies in the areas of human rights and development, immigration and asylum laws and Islam and the Middle East. He has held several key appointments in India, including Supreme Court Commissioner on Forced Labour, Legal Advisor to the Government of Tamil Nadu and State Prosecutor on Civil Rights. He has been a consultant for the UNHCR, UNICEF and UN HABITAT. He has been closely associated with several NGOs, as a consultant for Minority Rights Group and is a trustee of the Commonwealth. With Hilary Lim he co-authored the new publication, Land Law and Islam, published by Zed Books in collaboration with UN-HABITAT.(Global Land Tool Network Roundtable) | | | |
| Mel Senen Sarmiento, the mayor of Calbayog City, Western Samar, Philippines, belongs to a family of politicians from the island of Samar. Mayor Sarmiento says that a member of his family has been involved in the island's political affairs from as far back as one century ago. In 2001, he was elected mayor of Calbayog City. Through a series of strategies he attributes to his experience in the private sector, his administration increased tax collection efficiency to 97.65% (from 6.87% in 1997), increased local revenue by 5.4%, with a 130% increase in revenues from business collections. A hands-on local chief executive, Mayor Sarmiento’s typical day starts at 7AM, and does not end until about 1AM, when he concentrates on the paperwork for the following day. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Wolfgang Schuster, Stuttgart's two-term mayor has experience as his city's deputy mayor and political adviser and as mayor of an adjacent town. Well-known on the global and European stage, he is known also for his child-friendly policies and hopes for a major transport-led redevelopment of the city centre. Born in 1949 in the city of Ulm, also in Baden-Württemberg, MAYOR Schuster regards his main achievement as being able to retain the city's leading edge economically, amid industrial restructuring in the wider German economy and its attendant effect on other municipalities. Stuttgart, the State capital of Baden Wurttemberg, is renowned for its high quality of life, owing to the presence of a number of blue chip companies such as Daimler AG, Porsche and global firms IBM and Hewlett Packard, and as a longstanding base for high tech industries. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Eloy Cantú Segovia is a Mexican politician, member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He was the Senator for the state of Nuevo Leon, from 1994 to 2000 and was elected again in 2006 for a six-year term. Before that, he was the federal deputy for the Federal Electoral District V Nuevo Leon from 2000 to 2003. He currently chairs the Committee on Commerce and Industrial Development in the Senate. In 2007, he chaired the Committee for Promoting the Competitiveness of the Senate. He is the chairman of the Committee of the American continent of Global Parliamentarians on Habitat, an agency that is charged with coordinating the national and regional policies on housing and sustainable urban development, with help from UN-HABITAT. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Kumari Selja, India’s Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation is an agriculturist, politician and social worker. In 1990, she became Joint Secretary of the All India Mahila Congress party. She was elected to the 10th Lok Sabha in 1991 and became Union Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Education and Culture in July 1992, a post she held until September 1995. In 1996 and 2004, she was re-elected to the 11th and 14th Lok Sabha respectively. In 2004, she became Union Minister of State, holding Independent Charge, in the Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation. She has a special interest in the eradication of illiteracy and untouchability, particularly in the rural areas. She is also concerned with environmental issues, specially the regeneration of ecologically degraded areas, and developmental problems. (Ministers Roundtable) | | | |
| Kelly Shannon is Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium. Her interests include contemporary architecture, indigenous building and design traditions, vernacular architecture, traditional environments, urban development and squatter settlements, city and regional development, architectural education, planning education environment-behavior studies, urban design and landscape design. (Universities Roundtable) | | | |
| William Ferdinand Shija is the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. The Tanzanian politician is a former member of the African Union's Pan-African Parliament. Before entering politics, Dr. Shija worked as a civil servant and a teacher. After receiving higher education in India and the United States, he taught communications in Tanzania. He was a member of the National Assembly of Tanzania from 1990 to 2005. During this time he held the positions of Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Minister for Energy and Minerals and Minister for Industries and Trade. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| David Simon, Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, is a specialist on sub-Saharan Africa, especially southern Africa, and has extensive experience in Namibia, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya. He also has research experience in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Philippines. His particular research interests include development theory and policy; the development-environment interface; urbanisation and urban-rural interaction; transport and regional and national development planning; and the role of information and communications technologies in development. He has acted as consultant and expert advisor to various international development agencies, the Namibian government and to business briefing services and individual clients. (Researchers Roundtable) | | | |
| Since 1988, Mr Roger Stone has been an elected member of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, an up and coming location which has transformed itself over the last two decades to play a major role in the regeneration of the South Yorkshire region in the North of England. He was selected by his peers to the position of Leader in 2003, and has overall responsibility for ensuring the delivery of the manifesto, vision and strategic priorities within the Council and the Borough of Rotherham, ensuring delivery of high-quality services to the public. He is Vice Chair of Local Government in Yorkshire and Humber, an organisation that represents 22 local authorities in a region with around five million residents. He is also the Chair of the Yorkshire and Humber Improvement Board. (Mayors Roundtable) | | | |
| Pentti Uolevi Tiusanen is a Finnish politician and Member of Parliament. The surgeon has been a Member of Parliament since 1995. He has been the vice president of the Environment Committee for more than 10 years. In addition to this, he is a substitute member of the Transport committee and the committee on Working Life and Equal Opportunities. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Since Notario Oscar López Velarde Vega obtained a law degree from the Iberoamerican University, Mexico in 1974, he has held several senior positions in the area of human settlements in Mexico, including being an Assistant Director of Legal Studies of Urban Development of the Directorate General of Legal Affairs; member of the National Consultative Council of Urban Development; chairman of the Global Parliamentarians on Habitat and chairman of the Group of Mexican Parliamentarians on Habitat. He is currently the member of the Environment Committee of the Latin American Parliament and Chairman of the Advisory Council of Mexican and World Parliamentarians on Habitat. (Parliamentarians Roundtable) | | | |
| Jaap Zevenbergen is an Associate professor for Geo-information and Land Development. He is occupied with research, teaching and advising on the theme of geo-information provision, of which he is also a theme leader, in the Netherlands. The emphasis here is on the legal, administrative and organisational aspects, while the applications are often related to the land and property market. Legislation surrounding land arrangement and reconstruction also gain his attention. Both for research and for advising, he spends considerable time abroad. In 2006 he was in Croatia and Aruba. He is also working as editor of a conclusive book for the European COST project (G9) towards the modelling of the transaction systems of real estate. In the Netherlands Jaap Zevenbergen advises the Ministry of Housing, Regional Development and the Environment on the Dutch Register and the broader geo-information infrastructure. (Universities Roundtable) | | | |
| Kyung-wha Kang was appointed Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2006. Her appointment is at the level of Assistant Secretary-General. Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Kang, a Korean national, was Director-General of International Organizations at the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with a portfolio that covered a wide range of UN issues, including human rights. She also served as Minister at the Korean Mission to the United Nations in New York and chaired the Commission on the Status of Women for its forty-eighth session in 2004 and its forty-ninth session in 2005, which marked the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women. | | | |
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