Pooya Alaedini is an Assistant Professor of Social Planning at the University of Tehran. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University. Alaedini has worked as a consultant on a number of development projects with various international organizations, including the World Bank. His areas of research interest are urban and regional planning, industrial development, and employment and migration issues. His publications include: "International Migration and Poverty: The Iranian Experience," Journal of Social Welfare, No. 18, 2005 (with Y. Emami); "Women's Employment and Participation in Iran," Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2005 (with M. Razavi); Training and Employment of People with Disabilities: Iran 2003, ILO, 2004; "Decentralization and Sustainable Human Development: The Case of Iran's Councils," in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, UNESCO, 2004 (with S. Namazi); and "Urban Implications of Information Technology/New Electronics in the Developing World," Urban Technology, No. 3, Vol. 9, December 2002 (with P. Marcotullio).

Afolabi Aribigbola is a lecturer in the Department of Geography and Planning Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria. He was born in Idanre, Nigeria and received M.Sc. and PhD degrees from Universities of Benin and Obafemi Awolowo respectively in Nigeria. He is a member of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners and a Registered Town Planner with the Town Planners Registration Council of Nigeria (TOPREC). He has attended and presented papers at several conferences at international and local levels on Housing and Urban Development and planning. He has co-authored more than 20 research articles, book chapters and currently serves as Publicity Secretary of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, Ondo State Chapter. He is married with children.

Varsha Ayyar is currently completing a PhD in sociology. Her thesis focuses on slum dwellers in Mumbai, particularly Dalit women. She was also part of an international project, (Shastri Applied Research Project funded by CIDA) investigating "Urban Poverty Issues, Policy Evaluations and Prescriptions." She was selected as young emerging leader for a two year program on "Amplifying Youth Voices on Rights, Poverty and Discrimination," Global Rights, New York, USA. She was invited as young women leader from India (South Asia) at the "Global Women's Action Network" at Dead Sea Conference, Jordan.

Antonio Azuela, a lawyer and sociologist, is professor at the Social Research Institute of Mexico's National Autonomous University, where he conducts research on urban and environmental issues from a socio-legal perspective. He coordinates the International Research Group on Law and Urban Space (IRGLUS) of the International Sociological Association.

Jose Alejandro Bayona is an Architect with a Postgraduate Degree in Economy. He has 10 years of experience doing research, working on policy making and following up its implementation processes regarding housing and urban development. Since 2001 he is working for the National Planning Department, the main national planning agency in Colombia, and currently is the Director of the Department for Urban Development and Environmental Policy.

Erhard Berner is Associate Professor of Development Sociology at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands. He has done extensive research on urban poverty and community responses in the Philippines and elsewhere, and published a book and numerous articles on the subject. He has also served as a consultant to UN-Habitat, international NGOs and government institutions in the field of housing. Current research focuses on local effects of globalization, urban governance, the informal sector and poverty alleviation. Teaching experience includes Ateneo de Manila University, San Carlos University in Cebu City, Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, University of Namibia in Windhoek, and University of Bielefeld.

Robert Buckley is the Urban Housing Advisor at the World Bank where he undertakes studies of housing and land markets and helps prepare Bank supported projects. He has worked in many countries, most recently Ghana and India, and has written a number of studies, and articles. His most recent study is Thirty Years of World Bank Shelter Lending: What Have We Learned. Prior to joining the Bank he taught at a number of universities and was the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Chief Economist.

Jan K. Brueckner is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. He received an A.B. from UC Berkeley in 1972 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1976, and was a long-time faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before coming to UCI in 2005. He has served as visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, and has been a visiting scholar at many foreign universities. Brueckner has published extensively in the areas of urban economics, public economics, housing finance, and the economics of the airline industry. He serves as editor of the Journal of Urban Economics and is a member of the editorial boards of four other journals. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and to several of the major airlines.

Julio Calderón Cockburn, sociologist, graduated fron the Universidad Católica del Perú. He received a Doctor`s degree from Universidad de San Marcos. At present he is a is consultant and professor in the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería and the Universidad de San Marcos. His many publications on urbanism in Peru include Mercado de tierras urbanas, propiedad y pobreza (2006), La ciudad ilegal. Lima en el siglo XX (2005) and Propiedad y crédito. La formalización de la propiedad en el Perú (2003).

J. Albert Cao holds a PhD in Land Management from University of Portsmouth. He is currently Senior Lecturer at the Department of Real Estate and Construction - Oxford Brookes University. Dr Cao is a real estate management specialist in valuation and investment with special research interests in China and European countries. Being an expert on China's real estate market, he has conducted in-depth study on China's land market, housing market and commercial real estate market, and links the Chinese real estate market to urban competitiveness, sustainable development and regional economic development. Dr Cao has just finished a major research project funded by the RICS and Shui On Holdings Ltd on China's real estate market and is in the process of writing papers and a book based on the study.

Mathew Chandey, CHF International, has more than 15 years of experience as a community planner and architect, promoting the development of affordable housing and urban renewal. In his current role as Country Director for India, Mr. Chandy oversees implementation of a $4 million USAID-funded slum upgrading/redevelopment project. Prior to his appointment in India, Mr. Chandy was CHF’s Country Director in South Africa, where he managed all aspects of program implementation in Eastern Cape and supported the institutional development of a local NGO partner. During his time at CHF’s Headquarters, Mr. Chandy has backstopped and provided technical assistance to CHF’s field programs, including a microfinance and rural development program in Lebanon, an assisted self-help shelter program in South Africa, a community development program in the Philippines, and an emergency winterization program in Kosovo. Mr. Chandy’s academic background in Community Planning (M.A.) and Architecture (B.A.) provides valuable technical contribution to the projects he has managed. Prior to coming to CHF, Mr. Chandy served for five years as a manager and planner in the Dayton, Ohio Metropolitan Housing Authority where he coordinated the design and development of new housing projects.

Michael Cohen is Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA). From 1972 to 1999, he worked at the World Bank and was responsible for much of the urban policy development of the Bank over that period. He has worked in over 50 countries and was heavily involved in the Bank's work on infrastructure, environment, and sustainable development. He has published widely including several books on urban development, Africa, and evaluation of the impact of development assistance, and has advised governments, NGOs, and academic institutions around the world. He served as the president of the International Institute for Environment and Development, and as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences Panel on Infrastructure and also on the Panel on Urban Dynamics. He received a Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Chicago in 1971.

Joseph Comby, economist and urban planner, is chief editor of the bimonthly journal Etudes Foncières (Land Studies) since its foundation in 1978. Since 1981, he also developed the Association for Land Studies (ADEF) who gathers actors, institutions and specialists of land markets and land policy for exchanges and debates on related questions, stimulates studies and research as well as their dissemination. He worked on the following topics: techniques of observing and analyzing land market; securing land property; urban development laws and methods; national and local land policies. He has been working in Algeria, Benin, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China (Manchuria), Ethiopia, Gabon, Guyana, Morocco, Martinique, Rumania, Russia, Togo, Tunisia. He teaches land policies since 1983, and is associated professor at "Institut d'Urbanisme de Paris" (University Paris VIII).

John Driscoll is a vice president of the Institute for International Urban Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Director of the International Centre for Local and Regional Development in Armagh, Northern Ireland and a research fellow ant the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. As a planner interested in housing, urban management and community development he has worked in transition societies and economies since 1984 with central and local authorities and community groups in Albania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo, Poland, Romania, South Africa and the United States. He is actively engaged in developing and teaching professional education programs for urban planners and managers and has been involved in courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the World Bank, the Central European University and the Soros funded Local Government Initiative in Budapest.

Alain Durand-Lasserve is a senior research fellow at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), France. He is attached to the SEDET research centre, University Denis Diderot, Paris. His research interests include land and housing policies for the low-income groups in urban and peri-urban areas, and customary land management. He gives particular attention to international comparisons and trends regarding tenure formalisation and security of tenure issues. He works in South-East Asian, North African and sub-Saharan African countries. He does consultancy for various bilateral and multilateral aid and development agencies.

Sean Fox is a Tutorial Fellow in the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE), as well as a PhD Student Fellow at the Crisis States Research Centre at LSE. He has worked as a consultant on urban poverty and development issues with Oxfam and Care International, and is currently working on a PhD that explores the relationship between patterns of urban development and state development in Africa. He is co-author (with Professor Jo Beall) of the forthcoming book Cities and Development (Routledge 2008).

Caroline Gerber is manager of the Association for Land studies (ADEF), France, since 2006. She is in charge of the development of the association: studies for national and international partners, consultancy, conferences, book and journal publishing on different topics like land impact of environmental issues (pollution, energy, urban sprawl…), national and local land policies, observing land markets, urban development laws and methods etc. Before her present activity, she developed during ten years her own company specialized in project management (public facilities, office buildings, urban development) for local governments and developers. She was also associated in urban research programs in France (French Ministry of Transports and Equipment) and Europe (European Commission Research programs) on land policies and land markets, public policies evaluation, stakeholder analysis and evolution of landplaning practices. She taught urban planning in an architecture school, and is still regularly teaching in different long life learning programs. She holds a Master's degree in urban planning and development at Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, and a Master's degree in architecture (EAPLV, Paris).

Cynthia Goytia is an Urban Economist. She has a vast experience in housing economics as well as informal sector and land markets. She is the Associate Director of the Graduate Program of Urban Economics at the Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Current research focuses on microeconomic analysis on the effects of the access to basic infrastructure and microfinance by the poor.

Sumila Gulyani is Director of the Infrastructure and Poverty Action Lab (I-PAL) at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning. Prior to joining Columbia, she was a senior urban planner and economist at the World Bank. She is currently leading two major World Bank-supported studies-one on the slums of Nairobi and Dakar, and another analyzing inequality in infrastructure access in four African capital cities. She is author of the book Innovating with Infrastructure and of numerous articles on water, transport, electricity, and slums. She holds a Ph.D. in economic development and urban planning from MIT.

Emilio Haddad holds degrees as Civil Engineer, Escola Politecnica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1970; Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Stanford University, EUA, 1973; Master of City Planning, University of California, Berkeley, 1975; and Doctorate, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1986. He was a Visiting Scholar, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley, 1989-1991 and is currently Professor Doutor, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de Sao Paulo since 1980. He was a Principal Researcher, Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas do Estado de Sao Paulo - IPT (1970-1997); Director, Companhia Metropolitana de Habitação de São Paulo - COHAB-SP (1983-1986); and President, Latin American Real Estate Society (2005-2006). His areas of interest are real estate development policies and city planning.

Eric J. Heikkila is Professor and Director of the SPPD International Initiative at USC’s School of Policy, Planning and Development. In this capacity he works to integrate an international dimension into the School’s core activities, including research, curriculum and professional outreach. He oversees the School’s distinctive SPPD International Laboratory offerings, which enable graduate students to gain professional field experience abroad. He is also co-Founder and Executive Secretary of the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development, which holds regular forums hosted by local governments throughout the region. Professor Heikkila’s scholarly research and teaching seeks an understanding of how urban places develop, with attention to the economic, cultural, historical and geographic influences that shape developmental outcomes. Recent work in this area includes a suite of papers showing how the mathematics of fuzzy sets can be used to characterize urban forms, as well as more narrative-based analytical inquiries into the interpretation of urban spatial patterns. His book on Economics of Planning is widely used in university classes in the United States and abroad.

Vernon Henderson is the Eastman Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and Urban Studies at Brown University, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His Ph.D. is from the University of Chicago. His research interests include microeconomic theory, urban and regional economics, economic development, and public finance, including the environmental aspects of cities and industrial locations. His current research activities include spatial evolution of economic activity, urban growth, corruption, urbanization in Asia, and sources of urban productivity. He currently has projects in the USA, Brazil, China, and Indonesia.

Carlos Herrera Martín holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and an LLM in Urban and Environmental Law from Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. He is a professor of Urban Law at the LLM in Administrative Law and Regulation at ITAM and a lecturer in Administrative Law at Universidad Anáhuac del Sur. He has worked in various consultancy projects on the relationship between land law and development and land regularization process in Mexico. He has been responsible for conducting extensive research on the legal and judicial framework of eminent domain in Mexico for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Edith R. Jimenez Huerta, is an established Mexican researcher. Her main interests during the last 18 years have been in land and irregular settlements. After obtaining her degree as an Architect at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she followed a masters course at the University of London, Department of Urban Planning. She studied for a doctorate at Essex University, and in 1998 was awarded a prize by the British Mexican Society for the best PhD thesis written on Mexico. In 1991, after working as principal research assistant to Dr. Peter Ward at the Department of Geography in Cambridge, she was offered a job as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Guadalajara, where she still works today. For six years in between (1993-1998), she worked as advisor to the state government of Aguascalientes. She has taught students at first degree, masters and PhD level; and has been the director of over 10 masters' theses. She has given many papers at international events since 1989, is editor of a book that published most of the papers on land valorization in developing countries presented at an international seminar held at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge, and has published a book on irregular settlements and many articles. The National Council of Technology and Science funded two of her research projects (Atlas of the Production of Urban Land in Guadalajara, and Land Prices in Guadalajara), and the University of Guadalajara funded another seven. Since 1992 she has been a member of the national government's system of researchers. The University of Guadalajara has awarded her a distinction for her research work every year since 2002.

Olga Kaganova is a senior associate at the Urban Institute, in Washington, D.C. Over the past 15 years she has been providing technical assistance on real estate reforms, government decentralization, and public property asset management in about 20 countries - from Chile to Kuwait to Russia to Indonesia. Since late 1990s, she has specialized in asset management of government-owned property. Dr. Kaganova co-edited the book Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences published by the UI Press in 2006. She authored and co-authored six chapters in this book. Before joining the Urban Institute, she was a founder and managing director of a real estate consulting company in St. Petersburg, Russia. She has lectured and presented at the John Hopkins University, University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, UCLA, Wisconsin University in Madison, Penn State University, the Commonwealth University of Virginia, and the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. She performs as Advisor for the National Executive Forum on Public Property (Canada) and has more than 30 publications on real estate issues in professional and academic publications internationally. The op-eds she co-authored appeared in Washingtonpost.com (August 7, 2006) and The Baltimore Examiner (March 12, 2007). She holds PhD in Applied Mathematics from the Krasnoyarsk Institute of Bio-physics (Russia) and the professional designations Counselor of Real Estate (CRE) and Fellow of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).

Setsu Kanto is an economist doing research on poverty eradication and slum upgrading programs in Brazil. She has a master degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Her dissertation was "an evaluation of Favela-Bairro: a development project for squatter settlements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil". Prepared (in co-authorship) a report for the ODI (Overseas Development Institute, UK) Rapid project on "Cross-case analysis: UK-based civil society organizations and the research/policy link".

Tej Kumar Karki is an Urban Planner who graduated from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, in 1991. He has fifteen years of work experience in the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DUDBC). There he worked as an Acting Division Chief between 2001 and 2003. He has published articles in the Habitat International Journal, Environment and Urbanization Journal and in the Hand Book of Urban Health, NY. He had also presented a paper in the Second Urban Research Symposium in 2003, organized by the World Bank. His recent research interest includes zoning and housing relationships, inner city competitiveness, urban poverty and metropolitan policy. He has experiences in conducting urban and environmental studies, preparation of town planning schemes and implementation of land readjustment projects. He was chief of the office of the two town planning offices of Kathmandu Valley. Mr. Karki has worked as a visiting faculty in two institutions: MSc. Urban Planning Program of Tribhuvan University and the MSc. in Environmental Management Program of Pokhara University. In addition, Mr. Karki is an active member of the Regional and Urban Planners' Society of Nepal (RUPSON); life member of the Nepal Engineers' Association (NEA), Society of the Nepalese Architects (SONA) and the GIS Society of Nepal. He has travelled to Japan, UK, Norway, Singapore and Thailand for conferences and trainings.

Ramin Keivani holds a PhD in Planning Studies from the Bartlett School, University College London. He is currently Research Coordinator at the Department of Real Estate and Construction - Oxford Brookes University. Dr Keivani is an urban development specialist with a wide range of interests in comparative urban research particularly the impact of globalisation on land markets and urban development in developing and transition economies. Other areas of his interest include urban competitiveness, urban regeneration, international land and housing policy. He has managed several research projects including ESRC and RICS funded work and provided consultancy services on these topics covering a number of countries including China, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Brazil, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Dr Keivani is co-author of a book on housing policy in developing countries and has published a number of papers on globalisation and urban development as well as land markets and housing policy in leading international journals, including Urban Studies, Progress in Planning, Journal of Property Research, CITIES, Urban Technology, Habitat International and others.

Lalit Khandare is a PhD student at Indiana University, USA. He recently earned a Master of Philosophy in Planning & Development from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on "Corporate Social Responsibility: Issues of discrimination & diversity at the workplace in India." He is a Social Work graduate of TISS, Mumbai and holds a Human Rights postgraduate degree from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Lalit recently presented a paper at the Millennium Criminology Conference on Race & Gender in London, UK (May 2006). In August 2005 he presented two papers at the XIV World Congress of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania. Lalit was a member of the Young Social Scientist Forum; an initiative of the Delhi Policy Group, TISS and the European Commission.

Tetsuo Kidokoro is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Urban Engineering, the University of Tokyo and specializes in urban and regional planning and policy in Asian countries. He acquired a Ph. D. from the University of Tokyo (Urban Planning) in 1993. Job experiences include: Visiting Lecturer in the Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and Associate Expert, Human Settlements Unit, UNESCAP. Recent papers include "Formation of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies in Asia" in Nature and Human Communities, Springer (2004), "The Impact of Globalization and Issues of Metropolitan Planning in Tokyo", in Globalization and the Sustainability of Cities in the Asia Pacific Region, UNU Press, Tokyo (2001), and "Issues and Prospects for Regional Development Planning in An Age of Globalization", Journal of Development Assistance, Vol.5, No.1, pp74-89.

Volker Kreibich, born 1940, is a geographer by training with an MA from the University of Colorado, USA, and a doctoral degree from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He practiced as an urban planner at the municipality of Munich before he lectured as a professor of Spatial Planning in Developing Countries at the Faculty of Spatial Planning, University of Dortmund, Germany, until his retirement in 2005. His research focus is on the governance of informal urbanisation in the developing world.

Christa Lee-Chuvala is a research associate at the Institute for International Urban Development where she assists in the development of projects and conducts research for the Institute's capacity building and technical assistance programs in Latin America, Central Asia, and Europe. Her research focus at the Institute has been on the impacts of migration and remittances on land and housing in Latin America. She has also worked on projects relating to rural development in Anatolia, Turkey and the preservation of cultural heritage in Baku, Azerbaijan. Prior to coming to the Institute, she worked as a community organizer at a grassroots CBO in Buffalo, NY, where she led youth employment training programs and advocated for youth and their families.

Edward Leman is President of Chreod Group Inc., a professional services organization focused on the development and management of metropolitan areas. Mr. Leman has led Chreod's consulting and research work in over 90 cities in China since 1988, including recent assignments for the World Bank on development trends and investment needs in several of the country's largest metropolitan regions.

Nora Libertun de Duren is interested in the links among institutions, urban form, and social development. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University in the City of New York, and is the editor in Chief of Projections 6, The MIT Journal of Planning. She holds a PhD in Urban Planning with a specialization in International Development from MIT, a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and an Architecture degree from the University of Buenos Aires. Among other prizes, she has been awarded the Fulbright Fellowship, the Harvard Fortabat Fellowship, the MIT Presidential Fellowship, and the University of Buenos Aires School of Architecture Gold Medal. She has professional work experience in designing urban and architectural projects for Buenos Aires, Mexico, New York, London, Vienna, Beijing, and Doha, and teaching experience at Harvard University School of Design and at the University of Buenos Aires.

Ashna Mathema is an urban planner/ architect, with about 10 years of experience in the development sector, on housing and infrastructure issues in developing countries. She has done extensive fieldwork in slums and informal settlements in Africa and Asia, and is currently working as a consultant at the World Bank's urban anchor. Among her more recent assignments was a qualitative study of Accra's housing conditions which included case-studies of the city's informal settlements based on focus-group discussions and detailed interviews with the local residents. She has done similar assessments in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Mbabane (Swaziland), and Kabul, which provide a detailed perspective on the social, economic, and physical, and community-based aspects of urban poor households.

Manya Mooya is a lecturer in Property Studies in the Department of Construction Economics and Management at the University of Cape Town. His primary research interest is on the interface between property and capital accumulation. He has previously taught in the Department of Land Economy at the Copperbelt University in Zambia, as well as in the Department of Land Management of the Polytechnic of Namibia. Mr. Mooya holds a BSc degree in Land Economy from the Copperbelt University and an MPhil. degree in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge. He is a PhD in Real Estate candidate with the University of Pretoria.

Rose Musyoka holds a BA, MA (Philosophy), MA (Urban and Regional Planning) and PhD. in Public Policy. She is a registered planner with the Kenya Institute of Planners. Musyoka is an urban planner with Government of Kenya and a public policy analyst specialising in land. She also lectures part time in the School of Environmental Studies, Moi University, Kenya.

Mark Napier is programme director of Urban LandMark, a UK government funded programme in South Africa which focuses on making urban land markets work better for the poor. He is an architect by profession and studied housing at post-graduate level at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Mark lives in Pretoria, South Africa. He has also spent time in government setting up a research unit in the National Department of Housing, and before that was with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. He has researched and published in the areas of housing extensions, home based enterprises, environmental aspects of informal settlements, and land and housing markets.

Opuenebo Binya Owei is a Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She has also served as consultant to a number of international organizations/companies operating in Nigeria including the United Nations Development Programme and Shell Petroleum Development Company, Nig. Plc. (Eastern Division). A professional planner, she obtained an M.Phil in Town Planning from the Bartlett School, University College London in 1978 and a PhD from the University of Port Harcourt, in 1994. An active member of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners and the International Society of City and Regional Planners, her main areas of interest are urban environmental management, urban growth management and urban planning and implementation. She has a number of publications in the field.

Geoffrey Payne first undertook research on housing and urban development issues in India in 1970. Since then he has undertaken consultancy, research and training assignments in most parts of the world. He has taught in several universities, written, edited or contributed to many publications and organised or participated in many international conferences and workshops. He established Geoffrey Payne and Associates in 1995 and specialises in urban development, housing, land management, land tenure and project design in developing countries. Work has included reviews of regulatory frameworks, urban and housing sector reviews, policy assessments and the development of local level planning projects. A central preoccupation is building local capacity to stimulate local social and economic development.

Maria da Piedade Morais is an Economist, with an MSc in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She is a researcher of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) in Brasília since 1998. Her main areas of interest include: Urban Economics, Housing Policy, Urban Indicators, Urban Poverty and Environmental Economics.

Robin Rajack is a senior urban development specialist at the World Bank who is engaged in urban land operational, technical advisory or research functions in most regions of Bank work. He joined the Bank in 2003 and co-chairs its Housing and Land Thematic Group. He previously served as a founding Executive Director of the Land Settlement Agency in Trinidad where he was instrumental in the design and implementation of innovative national informal settlement regularization and green-field development programmes. He holds a Doctorate (1997) and Masters (1994) in Land Economics both from the University of Cambridge (UK). He has participated and consulted on projects for various international organizations including UN-ECLAC and has served as an international expert on land tenure to UN-HABITAT.

Paulo Sandroni was born in 1939 Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is an economist and senior professor in the School of Economics and Business of Sao Paulo of Getulio Vargas Foundation. He is a consultant in urban development issues for the public and private sectors.

Vrajlal Sapovadia is a Professor at BK School of Business Management, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India with a teaching & research interest in Finance, Law, Management Accounting & Cooperatives. Worked as a Facilitator in the World Bank Institute's e-learning course in the area of Public Finance during 2003-06. Guide in Micro Finance Community of Development Gateway. Published research papers and articles in many international journals. Has a special interest in World Bank activities - Urban Management, Public Finance, Corporate Governance, Poverty Reduction, Health & Education. Recipient of fellowships from International Cooperative Alliance (twice - 2004 & 2006) and International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade, USA (2004).

Harris Selod is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics and a tenured researcher at INRA-the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. He received an M.A. in Business Administration from ESCP-EAP (1995), an M.Sc. in Statistics from ENSAE (1999) and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Paris Sorbonne (2001). He has published a dozen papers in the areas of urban economics, public economics, labor economics and the economics of education, with a particular focus on the spatial dimensions of poverty and inequality in developing countries. His current research agenda is on poverty formation at urban fringes, local development policies in distressed areas, and internal migration.

Urmi Sengupta is an Architect and Urban Planner from Nepal. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Newcastle University. Her PhD focuses on assessing Kolkata's public sector housing performance using a set of housing indicators. She is interested in housing and land policies in developing countries, urban informal sector, urban poverty and public sector performance in delivering urban services. Her works on housing and squatter issues have been published in leading journals. Prior to commencing her PhD, she has worked in South Asia on several housing and land related projects as a principal member of Vastukar Samuha, a multidisciplinary consultancy firm with clients ranging from local organizations, NGOs and the Government.

Sujeet Sharma was trained as an Architect and Town Planner. His professional experience includes working for the public and private sector on a range of development projects in South Asia and Southeast Asia. He was the principal investigator for the feasibility studies for apartment development and water navigation in Nepal. He is also an expert in land pooling having been involved both as public sector planner and a private consultant. Mr. Sharma worked co-authored a compendium titled Construction Sector in Asian Economies - published by Spon Press in 2003 on behalf of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently working as a senior local government planner in the UK. He retains key interest in working and researching in developing countries on land, housing and planning issues. He is a member of the RTPI.

Remy Sietchiping is currently a Land Tenure Specialist at the UN-HABITAT in Nairobi, Kenya. He is also a Research Fellow in the School of Social and Environmental Enquire at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He received his Ph.D (Geography) from the University of Melbourne. Dr Sietchiping's work is in the areas of urban planning, slums, land and management and applied GIS. Prior to joining UN-HABITAT, Dr Sietchiping worked as Strategic Resources Analyst for the Victorian State government in Australia, Research Fellow at Deakin University in Australia, GIS Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Geography Lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and Project Manager in an NGO in Cameroon.

Flávio de Souza is a professor of urban studies at Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Brazil, acting as the Director of the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, where he also coordinates the Urban Issues Study Group. His main research interests are low-income housing land markets and public policy. He has published in Geoforum, International Planning Studies, Storia Urbana, Urban Studies, and Habitat International, where he was 'runner-up' for the Jorge Hardoy Memorial Prize for the Best Paper by a Researcher from a Developing Country (2000).

Isabel Viana holds a degree in Architecture, Universidad de la República, Uruguay. She has worked in Urban and Regional Planning in the Public Sector as Minister Advisor and Department Director of Planning (Maldonado - Uruguay) and in the Private Sector as a consultant in Planning and Environment Evaluation; conducted research and taught on planning matters in Uruguayan and foreign universities. Ms. Viana has published four books and an important amount of articles in journals and magazines. She is a member of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy professors group, teaches at the ORT University in Uruguay, and integrates the Urban Land Institute (ISU) and the "dosmil30" prospective magazine direction boards.

Christine Whitehead is Professor of Housing in the Department of Economics, London School of Economics and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge. She has been working in the fields of urban and housing economics, finance and policy for many years. She is author of a large number of academic and policy articles and reports on housing finance and related subjects. Latterly she has been involved in projects on European social housing and developments in mortgage markets with the European Network of Housing Research, reviewing English Housing Policy since 1975 for the ODPM, assessing the effectiveness of policies using the land use planning mechanism to achieve affordable housing for JRF and DCLG; affordability and sustainability projects for the post Barker agenda and a comparative analysis of the use of private finance in the provision of affordable housing in Australia and the UK for AHURI. She is Co-Deputy Chair (now Acting Chair) of the European Network for Housing Research, an honorary member of RICS and was elected fellow of the Society of Property Researchers in 2001. She has been advisor to House of Commons Select Committees on many occasions, latterly with respect to planning and affordable housing, and the role of the rented sector. She was awarded an OBE in 1991 for services to housing.

Jiawen Yang is an assistant professor in the City and Regional Planning Program at Georgia Institute of Technology. He obtained bachelor and master degrees in Peking University, China. He obtained Ph.D. degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At Georgia Tech, he teaches courses in economics, transportation planning, modeling and investment. He has conducted research on land and transportation development in both China and the USA. He has done commissioned work for the World Bank, the Energy Foundation and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. His recent work includes commuting and urban spatial structure in metropolitan USA, urban and regional transportation finance in China, mobility and accessibility consequences of land and transportation development in transitional urban China.

Belinda Yuen is a Chartered Town Planner and Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. She is currently President, Singapore Institute of Planners, and Vice-President, Commonwealth Association of Planners (Southeast Asia) (2006-08). Belinda is widely published in the discipline of urban planning, most recently on planning vertical living. She is the editor/co-author of the following books that explicate Singapore's urban planning: Development Control and Planning Law in Singapore, Planning Singapore: From Plan to Implementation, Urban Quality of Life, Sustainable Cities in the 21st Century, Enhancing Urban Management in East Asia. Belinda has served on various Singapore planning committees and civic groups including as Planning Appeals Inspector; Feedback Core Group on Physical Development; Feedback Panel on Income Tax; Subject Group on Parks, Waterbodies and Rustic Coast Identity Plan, Master Plan 2003; Focus Group and Action Programme Working Committee, Singapore Green Plan 2012. Her international work includes as short-term consultant with United Nations, Asian Development Bank and World Bank, and serving on the Board of Directors, Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development; Editorial Board of Asia Pacific Planning Review; Cities.

Jieming Zhu has been doing research on institutional analysis of urban development in the transitional economy and East Asian cities, and his publications appear in Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Affairs Review, Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, Environment and Planning A. In 1999, he published a book entitled "The Transition of China's Urban Development: from Plan-controlled to Market-led" with Praeger. He was International Senior Fellow in Johns Hopkins University (2000), Urban Studies Fellow, Journal of Urban Studies, Glasgow University (2006), Fellow of The Ronald Coase Institute (2007). He served as consultant to the East-West Center, USA (1996) and has been invited to make presentations to the institutions of World Bank, Rice University, State University of New York, Arab Planning Institute, and Ministry of Land and Co-operative Development, Malaysia. He has been engaged in training of Asian, African and American planners. He was Advisor to China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (2000/01); Visiting Professor to Tongji University; and Advisor to Guangzhou Bureau of Urban Planning (2003/04). He is editorial board member of the Journal of Planning Theory and Practice and Guest Editor for Habitat International.