SUSTAINING PEACE IN AN URBAN WORLD PARTICIPANTS ABI GHANEM, MAUREEN Ms. Maureen Abi Ghanem is an independent Urban Designer & Architect based in New York City. Her area of expertise includes emergency shelter solutions, informal settlement upgrading, and urban policy for affordable housing. She is a Member of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s standby roster and Member of the Lebanon Syndicate of Architects. Maureen previously worked for the UN’s Refugee Agency UNHCR in Lebanon as a Shelter Coordinator managing housing projects for Syrian refugees. Prior to UNHCR, she worked in the Urban Design Department of Solidere on post-war reconstruction projects for the Beirut city center. Most recently, she has been involved at UN-HABITAT New York Office, preparing a high-level event entitled The New Urban Agenda and The Future of Cities. She has contributed to the publication by Archis “A Guide to Beirut”. Maureen holds a Bachelor in Architecture and a Master’s in Urban Design from the American University of Beirut and The Technical University of Brandenburg in Germany.
CLIFFE, SARAH F. Ms. Sarah F. Cliffe is currently the director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. Prior to that, she was the Special Representative for the World Bank’s World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development, and the Special Adviser and Assistant Secretary-General of Civilian Capacities to the United Nations. Ms. Cliffe has worked for the last twenty years in countries emerging from conflict and political transition, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea Bissau, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Liberia, Mali, Rwanda, South Sudan, South Africa, Somalia, and Timor-Leste. At the World Bank, her work has covered post-conflict reconstruction, community driven development, and civil service reform. Ms. Cliffe was the chief of mission for the Bank’s program in Timor-Leste from 1999 to 2002; led the Bank’s Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group from 2002-2007; and was the Director of Strategy and Operations for the East Asia and Pacific Region from 2007-2009.
BOGART, BRIAN Mr. Brian Bogart is the External Relations Advisor with the New York Office of the World Food Programme. He has been responsible for defining the organization’s strategic engagement in key global initiatives, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the World Humanitarian Summit and Habitat III. Prior to his current position, Brian acted as a Policy Advisor in the Office of the Director of Policy and Programme in WFP Headquarters. He has also was an advisor in the East and Central Africa Regional Bureau the coordinated of emergency operations in Darfur and the Abyei region of Sudan. Brian joined WFP in 2005 as a Congressional Hunger Fellow in Kampong Speu, Cambodia. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury.
DECORTE, FILIEP Mr. Filiep Decorte is currently the acting Director and Officerin-Charge of UN-Habitat’s New York Liaison Office. Previously, he was Deputy Director and the focal point for UN-Habitat’s crisis-related work in New York. He played a key role in developing an urban track towards the World Humanitarian Summit and the emerging Global Alliance for Urban Crises. During his career, Filiep has predominantly focused on urban initiatives in conflict- and crisis-affected countries, specializing in urban planning, land, and housing issues. He has worked for UN-Habitat for more than fifteen years in different capacities, including long-term assignments in Haiti, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, and Morocco. He also acted as coordinator for UN-Habitat’s Global Disaster Management Program. He was trained as a civil engineer, architect, and urban and regional planner with advanced master’s degrees from the Universities of Ghent and Leuven in Belgium.
BRINKMAN, HENK-JAN Mr. Henk-Jan Brinkman has been chief of the Policy, Planning and Application Branch of the Peacebuilding Support Office in the United Nations Secretariat since 2010. Between 2006 and 2010, he was, subsequently, chief Economic Analysis and chief Food Security Policy and Markets in the Office of the Executive Director of the World Food Programme in Rome, Italy, and Senior Adviser for Economic Policy in the World Food Programme, based in New York. From 2001 to 2006 he advised United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette on economic, social and environmental issues as a Senior Economic Affairs Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He is the lead author of WFP’s World Hunger Series – Hunger and Markets (Earthscan, 2009) and the author of Explaining Prices in the Global Economy: A Post-Keynesian Model (Edward Elgar, 1999). He holds Dutch citizenship. CHANDRAN, RAHUL Mr. Rahul Chandran is a Senior Policy Adviser with the UNU Centre for Policy Research. His previous experience covers the areas of peacekeeping, development and humanitarianism, as well as a focus on UN reform. He has authored a number of reports, including “Humanitarianism in the Network Age”, for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and “Civilian Capacity in the Aftermath of Conflict”, which received widespread commendation in the UN Security Council. Before rejoining the United Nations, Mr. Chandran was the Deputy Director of the Center on International Cooperation, where he also helped to run the Afghanistan Reconstruction Program. In 2008, he was the lead author of “From Fragility to Resilience” for the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, as well as “Recovering From War”, a report commissioned by the British government.
FERNANDEZ-TARANCO, OSCAR Mr. Oscar Fernandez-Taranco assumed his position as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support on 1 November 2014. Prior to this he has worked for 5 years as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. He was responsible for overseeing the Department’s divisions dealing with the Americas, Asia and Pacific, Europe, Middle East and West Asia, and the Decolonization Unit and Division for Palestinian Rights. Mr. Fernandez-Taranco has worked in the United Nations system for over 30 years, both at Headquarters and in the field. He has served in various capacities during that period, including Deputy Special Representative of the Administrator in the West Bank Gaza Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Haiti, and Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Regional Bureau for Arab States. Immediately prior to Mr. Fernandez-Taranco’s current appointment, he had served as Resident Coordinator in Tanzania where he led the UN reform initiative of “Delivering as One”. Mr. Fernandez-Taranco is a graduate of Cornell University and MIT. GREGOIRE-VAN HAAREN, LISE Ms. Lise Gregoire is the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations. Previously, she was the Head of the Political Affairs Department - European Correspondent in the Hague. She has held former diplomatic postings at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union and the Netherlands Embassy in Paris, and served as a Policy Officer at DG Justice and Home Affairs of the European Commission. She holds degrees from Ecole National
d’Administration, Radboud University and Ecole commerciale de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris.
Beirut. He has written for a number of publications, including, Jadaliyya, Portal 9, the Arab Studies Journal and The Guardian.
LEIVA-ROESCH, JIMENA Ms. Jimena Leiva-Roesch is a Senior Policy Analyst at the International Peace Institute. From 2009 to March 2015, Jimena was at the Permanent Mission of Guatemala to the UN in New York, where she last served as Counselor. She was Guatemala’s lead negotiator for the sustainable development goals and the 2030 Agenda. Guatemala had the honor to share a seat with Colombia in the Open Working Group. From 2009-2015, Jimena was also Guatemala’s focal point for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Jimena was an active member of Guatemala’s Security Council team from 2012-2013, when Guatemala was a non-permanent member, under the leadership of Ambassador Gert Rosenthal. Jimena offers hands-on training on leadership and diplomacy at the United Nations University in Tokyo and other institutions.
SHOSHAN, MALKIT Ms. Malkit Shoshan is the founder of the Amsterdam-based architectural think tank FAST: Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory. Her work explores the relationship between architecture, politics, and human rights. She is the author of the award-winning book Atlas of Conflict: Israel-Palestine (2010), co-author of Village: One Land Two Systems and Platform Paradise (2014) and of the UNMANNED: Architecture and Security Series (2016). She is the curator of the Dutch pavilion for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, titled BLUE: Architecture of UN peacekeeping missions. Malkit teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2015, she was a Visiting Critic at the School of Architecture at Syracuse University. In 2014, as a fellow at The New Institute, she developed the project Drones and Honeycombs, a research on processes of militarization of the civic space, and Deisgn for Legacy, a cross-disiplinary project on the archiecture and legacy of UN peace missions.
NAKAMITSU, IZUMI Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu assumed the position of Assistant SecretaryGeneral for the Crisis Response Unit in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in November 2014. Prior to this, she was Director, Asia and the Middle East Division of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) from 2012 to 2014, and Director, Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training of DPKO from 2008 to 2012. From April 2005 till August 2008, she was working in her native Japan as Professor of International Relations at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. During the same period, she was also a member of the advisory council to the Japanese Foreign Minister, and a visiting senior advisor on peacebuilding at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) headed by Mrs. Sadako Ogata. PING CHAN, YU Ms. Yu Ping Chan is a Special Policy Advisor in the New York Office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), working on issues related to UNODC’s mandate, such as corruption, human trafficking, wildlife crime, narcotics and other matters. Prior to working for the UNODC, Yu Ping was a diplomat in the Singaporean Foreign Service. She served in Singapore’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York as Singapore’s expert representative on the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) and Sixth Committee (Legal) of the United Nations General Assembly. She was also the Embassy’s Press Officer. Before her posting to New York, Yu Ping worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s department overseeing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), covering regional strategic, political and security developments. SALIBA, SAMER Mr. Samer Saliba is the Urban Response Learning Manager at the International Rescue Committee (www.rescue.org) and is currently gathering evidence around how to improve urban humanitarian response in policy and in practice. Prior to this, he served for seven years as an urban planner, bolstering the resilience of New York City and the Northeast U.S. through his involvement in innovative programs such as Rebuild by Design, the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program, 100 Resilient Cities, and the National Disaster Resilience Competition. He has worked directly with at-risk communities, regional and municipal government agencies, and numerous other stakeholders in developing integrated resilience strategies that go beyond the basics of community planning. With the IRC, he works with country offices throughout the globe in supporting their urban response portfolios and the cities they benefit. He has published various reports and resources on urban humanitarian response and continues to research and advise on the topic as it relates to various countries and crises. He holds a Master of Urban Planning from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. SHARP, DEEN Mr. Deen Sharp is a doctoral candidate in Earth and Environmental Science, specialized in urban geography, at the City University of New York and an international consultant who has worked for a number of UN agencies. He is co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab uprisings and has worked extensively on urban geography in the Middle East. Previously, he was a freelance journalist and consultant based in Lebanon. His research focuses on the geography of the Arab world and his current project concerns the corporation and urban space in post-war
SORKIN, MICHAEL Mr. Michael Sorkin, President of Terreform, is an architect and urbanist whose practice spans design, criticism, and pedagogy. Since 2000, Sorkin has been Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. He is the architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor at Architectural Record, and author or editor of twenty books. Sorkin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the recipient of the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Mind Award, and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow. He is also Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, an international design practice that works in close collaboration with Terreform. SUCUOGLU, GIZEM Ms. Gizem Sucuoglu is a Senior Program Manager at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. Her area of expertise lies in the field of peacebuilding, conflict prevention, urban policy, international and regional organizations, Turkey, the Balkans, Middle East and South Asia. Prior to joining CIC, she worked at the United Nations, on the 2015 Review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture. She has held past positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, and Afghanistan as a career diplomat in the Turkish Foreign Service. Gizem holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kent at Canterbury. STEVEN, DAVID Mr. David Steven is a Senior Fellow and Associate Director at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, where he works on development policy and Agenda 2030, and leads on the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies project. Through this project, with UN member states, international organizations, global partnerships, and civil society and private sector actors to explore the challenge of delivering the Agenda 2030 targets for peace, justice and inclusion. David has published extensively on Agenda 2030, focusing on delivery of the new Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular on targets for fostering peaceful, just and inclusive societies. His work includes the recent CIC publication Turning Ambition into Reality – Platforms and Partnerships for Delivering Agenda 2030, and for Save the Children, From Declaration to Delivery: actioning the post-2015 agenda. David served as a Senior Strategic Adviser for the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, helping develop the partnership’s strategy and prepare it for formal launch in July 2016. WILSON, CAITLIN Ms. Caitlin Wilson commenced her post as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations in January 2015. Before taking up this role, she served as an Assistant Secretary with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, supporting Australia’s Presidency of the G20 in 2014. She previously served as Counsellor at the Australian Delegation to the OECD in Paris, and as Law and Justice Specialist for the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). She was also posted to Port Moresby as Second Secretary. In Canberra, Ms Wilson has held a range of positions in DFAT, AusAID and the Department of Defence, covering multilateral and bilateral issues. Ms Wilson holds a Master of International Development from Deakin University, a Bachelor of Business-Management from Queensland University of Technology, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.