Dr. Camila Cociña is a researcher at the Human Settlements Groups of the International Institute for Environment and Development, IIED. She is currently co-convening IIED’s work on Housing Justice. Camila is development planner and architect, whose work focuses on housing, urban equality, gender, informality and local governments. She has worked on collaborative projects with researchers, communities, international agencies and public organisations in Latin America, West Africa and SoutheastAsia, seeking for fairer ways of mobilising housing knowledge from a social justice and feminist perspective. She is based in Santiago, Chile.
Dr. Alexandre Apsan Frediani is a principal researcher of Human Settlements at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). He co-convenes IED’s work on Housing Justice. He specializes on issues around human development in cities of the global South. His work explores the role of housing policy and practice in advancing sustainable and equitable development pathways, particularly in the context of the world’s majority. Through partnerships with grassroots, NGOs, government and multilateral organisations, Alexandre promotes community-led and participatory approaches to knowledge production and responses to current global housing crisis. Alexandre is an advisor to Architecture Sans Frontières UK, a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association, and part of the boards of Habitat InternationalCoalition and the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre.
Hendrik von Schlieben has been a programme analyst with the Cities Alliance for the past 5 years and is based in Tunis, Tunisia. Under the Cities Alliance Global Programme on Cities &Migration, he works with a wide range of partner organisations from national and local government, academia, NGOs, CSOs and the private sector across Tunisia, Ethiopia and Uganda on topics such as diaspora engagement, digital financial inclusion, inclusive public spaces and business support for micro-enterprises. He is passionate about fostering more equitable access to quality basic services and decent work opportunities, and about how the urban poor can be empowered through collaboration with local private sector actors. Prior to joining Cities Alliance, he conducted research on the political economy of access towater in the informal settlements of Nairobi. He holds a master's in international development from Sciences Po Paris.
Mounia Tagma is a housing policy consultant whose work focuses on affordable housingissues in MENA and African countries. She currently works on housing projectsfor the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation in MENA and Africaon a broad range of housing-related topics including housing financeinstruments and products, housing ecosystems conducive to investment, andpolicy dialogue.
For three years, between 2017 and 2020, she was the Regional Manager for Africa and MENA for the Affordable Housing Institute (AHI), a US-based boutique consultancy with projects all over the world, for clients such as the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, Habitat for Humanity International, Government institutions, or private sector entities.
Previously, as the Head of Public-Private partnerships, Cooperation and Institutional Relations at Al Omrane Holding, the state-owned implementing agency of housing policy in Morocco, Mounia coordinated public-private partnerships for affordable housing and new urban developments in Morocco. She also developed and implemented the cooperation and institutional partnerships strategy.
Mounia holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she was also a Fulbright Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.
Rebecca Ochong is the Associate Director for Global Affairs and Advocacy at Habitat for Humanity International. In this role, she works to further HFHI’s global advocacy agenda, including issues related to adequate and affordable housing, security of tenure, housing finance, informal settlements, and disaster response. Rebecca has more than 20 years’ experience in the land and housing sector, mainly in the global south and has been instrumental in advocating for improved housing and land policies and practices at national, regional, and global levels. She previously worked as a land governance expert at UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) where she was instrumental in developing various land tools as well as building capacity of key government actors and other land stakeholders to improve implementation of innovative, pro-poor and gender responsive land management practices and policies. Rebecca holds a Master of Science in Land Management from KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.
