LECTURERS 2022

Urban Policy, Governance and Metropolitan Expert, UN-Habitat

Rafa is working on urban governance and metropolitan management at global level. He is Engineer, Magister in development, and Specialist in development, public policies and project management. In 2010 he joined to UN-Habitat where he has held several positions related with public information, knowledge management and project management, collaborating with UN-Habitat offices in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Kenia.
In 2014 Rafa started the Programme of Metropolitan and Urban-Regional Integration of UN-Habitat in Colombia. During 2017-2018 he led the Urban Safety, Governance and Legislation portfolio of UN-Habitat for the Andean Countries. Since 2019, he is part of the Policy, Legislation and Governance Section at UN-Habitat.Rafa has participated in several publications as author, coauthor, chair and coordinator, and he has been lecturer, instructor and visiting professor at universities in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and United States. He is fluent in Spanish, English and Portuguese.


website: https://urbanpolicyplatform.org/rafael-forero/

Human Settlement Programme Officer, UN-Habitat

Salvatore Fundarò is urban planner and designer with more than 15 years of experience in urban planning projects, developed both in the public and private sector. He is actually one of the senior planners at UN-Habitat’s Urban Planning and Design Branch LAB, following several urban planning projects in different developing countries.Graduated as Architect at Università degli Studi di Palermo, he continued his studies in Barcelona at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.He has worked as project leader in many Spanish architectural and urban planning agencies, among others in Busquets Arquitectura y Urbanismo and Ana Coello Paisaje y Arquitectura, developing several architecture and urban planning projects in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa.He has also developed professional career in local government, being for a short period of time urban designer at Gavà (Barcelona) City Council Planning Agency. 

website: https://cpi.unhabitat.org/users/salvatore-fundaro

Human Settlements Officer, UN-Habitat

Stephanie is UN-Habitat’s focal point for the work on migration and displacement, supporting programme development for migration and cities. She leads the development of normative guidance tools as well as operational projects in developing countries facing large scale migration to cities. She also manages global partnerships, advocacy and outreach on this topic. Stephanie has conceptualized and conducted capacity development activities for government authorities and other stakeholders in different countries.

website: https://cpi.unhabitat.org/experts/profile/stephanie-loose

Human Settlements Officer, UN-Habitat

Vincent Kitio is architect graduated from the Institute of Architecture of Venice and holds a PhD in Appropriate Energy Technologies (energy efficiency and renewable energy) for Developing Countries, from the University of Rome la “Sapienza”. Italy.He heads the Urban Energy Unit of UN-HABITAT, a section that works on three focus areas: universal energy access for the urban poor; energy efficiency in the built environment and renewable energy technologies in urban areas.

Founder of Bureau Bas Smets

Bas Smets has a background in landscape architecture, civil engineering and architecture. He founded his firm in Brussels in 2007 and has since completed projects in more than 12 countries with his team of twenty architects and landscape architects.Starting from a precise reading of the existing land, his projects reveal a landscape, visible yet unseen. These projects vary in scale from territorial visions to infrastructural landscapes, from large parks to private gardens, from city centres to film sets. Bas Smets’ realised projects include the park of Thurn & Taxis and the Saint-Gilles Plaza in Brussels; the public space around the Trinity Tower in Paris La Défense, the Sunken Garden and the Mandrake Hotel in London, the Himara Waterfront in Albania and the Parc des Ateliers in Arles.

website: https://www.bassmets.be