Atsushi Koresawa is the Director for UN-Habitat Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Fukuoka, Japan since June 2017. Before joining UN-Habitat, Mr. Koresawa served at various ministries and agencies of the Japanese government since 1988, his recent responsibilities including the Director for Management and Coordination at the Chubu Regional Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the Director for Search and Rescue Operations and International Cooperation at the Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and Director for Research at the Real Estate Transaction Improvement Organization. He also has served at several international organization including UN-Habitat (Nairobi) (1991-1994), the OECD (Paris) (1997-2000) and the Asian Disaster Reduction Center (Kobe) (2009-2012).

Mr. Koresawa earned master degree in environmental (social development) engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He has been engaged in national, regional and urban development, land and real estate management and disaster management both in Japan and internationally. In these fields, he has been practicing policy making and planning, project formulation and implementation, capacity building and undertaking policy studies. His recent publications include: “Towards a New Role for Spatial Planning (OECD)”, “Planning for An Ageing Society: Challenges for Territorial Development Policies (OECD)”, “Government’s Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake (Journal of Disaster Research)” and “Strengthening the Asian System for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR, Risk Returns)”.

Fay Darmawi is a film festival producer, community development banker, and urban planner interested using all forms of storytelling and media to create lasting social change. She is the Founder and Executive Producer of the SF Urban Film Fest, a film festival focused on civic engagement inspired by great storytelling. Her 25-years of experience as a leader in affordable housing finance, including managing the low income housing tax credit platform for Silicon Valley Bank, as well as 5-years of screenwriting training, informs her media-related work. She is a screenwriter alumni of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts community fellow and was recently awarded a National Arts Strategy Creative Community Fellowship. Fay served on the Boards of Directors of Chinatown Community Development Corporation and the American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter, and is currently on the Board of Livable City organizing ten Sunday Streets open streets events per year in San Francisco. Fay is the recipient of the Community Alliance Award from the American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter, and the Special Recognition Award for Accomplished Planner from the American Planning Association, California Northern Chapter. Fay’s formal urbanist training is from M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania but her love of cities is from her childhood growing-up in the epicenter of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Mr. Kamran is a network system and industrial engineer who has been involved in designing and executing business and development initiatives. He comes with academic knowledge along with comprehensive professional experience in the network, database, feasibility study, business plan and development projects. He is a professor at CDI College and continues to engage in development projects.

Reza Pourvaziry is an architect holding a master’s degree in Architecture  from Iran, as well as an urban researcher working in this field for over 25 years. His research focuses on the concept of architecture and process of design and sustainability which were presented in articles at international conferences and featured in newspaper. He established International Art & Architecture Research Association (IAARA) in 2002 to work and research about urban architecture about habitat and settlement with focus on sustainability. He has done architecture projects that he received international architecture awards, including world architecture community for Nashr Yadavaran Administrative Building and housing project for Atlas of unbuilt world by British Council. He was part of jury and steering committee and scientific committee of programs in the field of art & architecture and urbanism. He created different development projects and programs and started working as member of Steering Committee of UN-Habitat’s best practices since 2004. He continues to work closely with UN-Habitat and was designated by under-secretary-general of UN and former Executive Director of UN-Habitat as First Global Advocate of UN-Habitat in 2016 and was introduced at 40th anniversary of UN-Habitat which was celebrated at Habitat III conference in Quito in 2016. He established Middle East Regional Center for Best Practise and Local Leadership in 2012 –2014. In 2014, Ministry of Housing and Urbanism of Iran recognized him as one of the contemporary architects in the book ‘contemporary architecture’ and since then he worked as president and co-founder of International City Leaders and he was designated for City Prosperity Initiative –Metropolitan Cities initiative by UN-Habitat. ICL and UN-Habitat work together on various research, workshops and conferences and one of the main publications is World Cities Report launched in 2016. At present he is chair of Urban Economy Forum working on urban architecture projects globally.

Naison Mutizwa-Mangiza is the Former Director of UN-Habitat’s Regional Office for Africa.

He joined UN-Habitat in May 1991 as a Human Settlements Officer. He served in the Office of the Executive Director of UN-Habitat as Director and Principal Adviser, Policy and Strategic Planning from August 2010 to February 2017. Prior to that, he served as Chief of the Policy Analysis Branch and Editor of UN-Habitat’s Global Report on Human Settlements from April 2003 to July 2010. Naison also served as UN-Habitat’s Acting Chief of Staff from March 2012 to early 2013. Before joining UN-Habitat, he was Professor and founding Chairman of the Department of Rural and Urban Planning at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published widely on urban and human settlements development issues. A Zimbabwean national, Naison read Geography and Land Economy at the University of Cambridge, UK. He holds BA Honours and MA degrees in Geography, as well as an MPhil and a PhD in Land Economy. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, UK.

The biography is not available.

Head, Advocacy and Campaigns Unit at UN-Habitat, External Relations, Strategy, Knowledge and Innovations Division. Christine leads the World Urban Campaign, a global coalition and advocacy platform to raise the urban agenda and promote sustainable urbanization worldwide. PhD in Urban Studies (Institut Francais d’Urbanisme, Paris), housing policy specialist, practiced architecture and planning in France up to 1993. She joined UN-Habitat in the Urban Indicators Programme to develop city data for the Habitat II Conference (Istanbul, 1996) and the Global Urban Observatory. Developed private sector engagement for the agency as Chief of the Private Sector Unit (2007-2011).