Secretariat
The Global Alliance is led and coordinated by the Urban Hub at Save the Children.
Dr. Sarah Sabry
Founding Chair and steering committee member, Global Alliance – Cities4Children
Save the Children, Global Lead – Urban
Sarah is responsible for advancing Save the Children’s work in the urban context, especially for the most marginalized children. She founded and leads the Global Alliance – Cities 4 Children on behalf of Save the Children. Sarah has over 20 years of experience in development practice and research. She worked and consulted for various organisations including the Ford Foundation, IIED, IDRC, the American University in Cairo, and the Arab human rights fund. She has managed an NGO working on poverty reduction in Cairo, been a grant maker, a researcher, lecturer and project manager. Her work, research and writing has mostly focused on urban poverty with a focus on slums/informal settlements and on youth development. She holds a PhD in development studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She has taught at SOAS and at the University of Zurich.
Stephanie Nicol
Save the Children, Programme Officer – Urban
Stephanie is a member of the urban team at Save the Children. She also supports the coordination, advocacy and communications of the Global Alliance – Cities4Children. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Development and Sustainability from the University of Geneva and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Tsinghua University. She has previous experience with NGOs as well as UN agencies.
Anupama Nallari
Save the Children, Urban Research and Learning Advisor
Anupama is a member of the urban team at Save the Children. She also supports knowledge and content development for the Global Alliance – Cities4Children. She has over 15 years of experience as a designer and research consultant and has worked with global children’s organisations like UNICEF as well as held research and teaching posts in academic institutions in New York and Singapore. Her past work includes exploratory research on common space in informal settlements in India, facilitating child-focused participatory planning and design workshops and projects, developing child-friendly community indicators to promote child right’s respecting environments, developing neighbourhood and housing level Quality of Life indicators and supporting the development of global guidance and principles for public spaces for children in both formal and informal contexts. She received her doctorate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Steering Commitee
Dr. Sara Candiracci
ARUP, Associate Director
Sara is an urban planner, programme manager and social researcher with 19 years of professional experience in the field of inclusive and resilient urban development and planning, with a focus on vulnerable urban contexts. She leads the Inclusive and Resilient Cities portfolio of Arup International Development, and the Child friendly cities agenda, which received in 2020 the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Award for “Best Use of Thought Leadership”. Before joining Arup in 2017, Sara has worked with the UN (UN-Habitat, UNESCO), Development Banks (World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank), Local Governments (Quito, Ecuador and Maputo, Mozambique) and INGOs (CUAMM, Etimos) in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia. She holds a PhD in urban planning, with a thesis on the role of cultural heritage in social development and place-making in East Africa.
Andrea Torres
Bernard van Leer Foundation, Programme Director
Andrea has over 20 years of experience managing and implementing social public policies and programmes and over 10 years of experience in the early childhood development field. She holds a Masters degree in Public Policy and Management from the University of Chile, and a Master of Arts in International Child Studies from Kings College London.
Before joining the Foundation, she was the National Coordinator of Chile Crece Contigo (“Chile grows with you”), the comprehensive protection system for early childhood development, at the Ministry of Social Development from 2010 to 2012 and 2014 to 2018. She has also worked for the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, providing technical assistance to various Latin American countries in early childhood development.
Anne Louise Meincke
Plan International, Global Lead – Urban
Louise is an experienced human rights advocate, policy advisor, researcher and strategic partnerships manager, focusing on urban children and youth, and complex and neglected societal issues. With a 20-year track record working with NGOs, research institutions, private sector, governments and international organisations, Louise leads Plan International’s Urban Hub working across programming, sponsorship, research and humanitarian areas to achieve gender-transformative, inclusive and resilient cities. She is currently complimenting her experience by undertaking a PhD at the University of Dundee focusing on street youth and experiences of violence in African cities.
Douglas Ragan
UN-Habitat, Programme Management Officer for the Human Rights and Social Inclusion Unit
Douglas has worked on children and youth development at the local, national and international level for the past 30 years. Currently he is managing UN-Habitat’s children and youth programme which has engaged over 500,000 youth through projects in over 70 developing countries. His current focus is working with youth in informal settlements and in conflict cities. Doug has authored, co-authored and edited 17 research and policy publications on urban youth issues, the most recent being the Global Youth-Led Development series, representing research done on youth-led agencies in the developing world. Doug holds a Bachelors Degree in Latin American Studies and a Masters Degree in Management.
Thomas George
UNICEF, Senior Adviser and Global Lead for Urban
Thomas has over 33 years of experience in international development, with 28 years in the United Nations in different countries. He started his career with the Indian Civil Services and is a national of India.
Aline Rahbany
World Vision International, Technical Director, Urban Programming
Aline leads World Vision International’s global urban work as technical director on urban programming. She has worked in the international non-profit organization industry since 2008. In her current role, she leads the mainstreaming of urban programming across World Vision’s global strategy and operations. She also supports program, strategy and capabilities development for development and humanitarian responses in cities and other urban areas across multiple countries. She has a Master’s Degree focused on health education and community development from the American University of Beirut. She am passionate about inclusive cities and advocating for groups who are “deliberately silenced or preferably unheard”. She is Lebanese living in Toronto, Canada.