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 ā Urban
Sarah is responsible for advancing Save the Childrenās work in the urban context, especially for the most marginalized children. She founded and leads the Global Alliance ā Cities 4 Children on behalf of Save the Children. She is also a co-editor of the blog and research series of Cities4Children. 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 ā 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 ā 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.
Dr. Anupama Nallari
Save the Children, Urban Research and Learning Advisor
Anupama is a member of the urban team at Save the Children. She is a co-editor of the blog and research series of Cities4Children. She has over 15 years of experience as a designer and research consultant and has worked with global childrenās 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 rightās 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 āBest Use of Thought Leadershipā. 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.
Victoria Chavez
Van Leer Foundation- Urban95 Expert
Victoria is a Senior urban planner and architect with over a decade of experience in sustainable urban development, focusing on creating child-friendly cities through policy innovation, participatory planning and community engagement. As the Urban95 Expert in the Foundationās Support & Learning team, she provides technical assistance on urban planning and strategies across programme portfolios, like India, Brazil, Jordan, Israel, The Netherlands and many cities across Latin Ameria & Africa; contributing to the building of internal and external capacity on social-spatial impact in cities at scale.
Before joining the Foundation, she co-founded Huasipichanga, an organization dedicated to urban development using participatory and co-creation methodologies. At Huasipichanga, she developed innovative concepts and strategies to promote sustainability and child-friendliness in cities across Latin America, Europe, and Africa particularly in sustainable mobility, public space, neighbourhood planning, social justice, and monitoring and evaluation.
Julian Baskin
Cities Alliance, Principal Urban Advisor
Julian is a town and regional planner, with over 30 years of experience in urban programming, with a focus on participatory planning, slum upgrading and affordable housing. Prior to joining Cities Alliance in 2009, Julian served as Director of the Alexandra Renewal Project, a major urban redevelopment initiative of a slum settlement of some 400,000 inhabitants in Gauteng Province, South Africa. He has also worked for CARE International, UN-Habitat, the Cities of Durban and Johannesburg, and has lived and worked on slum upgrading in Mozambique, Bangladesh and Angola.
Atsani Ariobowo
FIA Foundation, Director of Child and Youth Health
Before his role with the Foundation, Atsani was the Manager of Global Road Safety Projects with the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, managing Fondation Botnarās child road safety challenge, a global safer mobility programme spanning thirteen cities. Previous to this Atsani was the Lead for VicRoads International, the road authority for the State Government of Victoria in Australia, responsible for winning and implementing international projects funded by multi-lateral banks such as the WB, ADB and Australiaās Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Atsani also has had professional experience in the consulting and energy industry. He holds a Master of Commerce from Melbourne University and a double degree in International Trade and Management.
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.
Aline Rahbany
World Vision International, Technical Director, Urban Programming
Aline leads World Vision Internationalās 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 Visionās 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 ādeliberately silenced or preferably unheardā. She is Lebanese living in Toronto, Canada.