We are delighted to welcome our newest Wisdom Keepers, Ana Falú and Adriana Allen, as proposed by the HIC Board and confirmed at the HIC 2024 General Assembly.
HIC Wisdom Keepers are individuals who have gained experiential knowledge of HIC by their association and commitment to HIC over time, rendering wise counsel to HIC, especially to the HIC Board. The title of Wisdom Keeper is proposed by the HIC Board and following past practice, endorsed by the General Assembly.
The HIC Board agreed to propose Ana María Falú and Adriana Allen at its Board Meeting in Cairo on 3 November 2024, considering several contributions that the HIC Board considers important for HIC’s institutional memory.
Ana María Falú
Ana contributed to advancing feminist approaches in relation to habitat within and beyond HIC, and offered institutional support and guidance during her mandates as HIC’s Vice President (1999 – 2003) and HIC Board Representative for Women’s and Feminist Movements (2019 – 2024).
Within and beyond HIC, she has played a critical role in fighting for and advancing feminist approaches and practices to habitat-related human rights, in particular housing and land, and women’s right to the city. She holds institutional memory and experience related to the Women and Shelter Network (WaS) that was active within HIC from 1988 – 2010, to the Women and Habitat Network Latin America and the Caribbean (Red Mujer y Hábitat) founded in 1989, and the more recent phase of reactivating HIC’s engagement with feminist approaches through the publication “Feminismos en Alta Voz” with HIC-AL tracing experience of Habitat and Gender, HIC’s cross-regional Co-Learning Space on Feminist Approaches to Habitat (2022), participation in and contributions to the social and feminist movements convergence exchange in Argentina (2023), and the development of the Women’s Right to the City Manifesto (2023). She also holds important institutional and governance-related knowledge and experience deriving from both her mandates on the HIC Board during which HIC experienced changes in leadership, and through her participation in the HIC institutional review process (2020-2023) as a Board Member.
Adriana Allen
Adriana held the position of HIC President from December 2019 – December 2023, a period marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and significant cross-regional political and institutional developments within HIC.
Politically, she led the co-development of several foundational processes and documents including HIC’s Habitat Voices Manifesto in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, HIC’s political positioning on climate justice as a habitat-related right, HIC’s renewed approach to engage social and feminist movements, and the first multi-year strategic planning process of the HIC Board in recent years.
She built on and further developed HIC’s long-standing trajectory of cross-regional exchange, learning and training through co-developing an emancipatory approach to cross-regional learning and political reflection in HIC through HIC’s co-learning spaces approach and process.
She also played a key role and holds important knowledge, insight and understanding in relation to the HIC institutional review process (2022-2023) and the political motions adopted by the General Assembly in December 2023.
For more info:
Ana Falú Bio:
Ana Falú, is an Argentinian architect and urbanist, with postgraduate studies in The Netherlands. Gender expert in Housing and Urban policies. Researcher, Professor and Practitioner, well-recognized in LAC and worldwide. Worked and lived in different countries.
Former Regional Director of UNWomen (ex UNIFEM) in the Andean Region (2002-4) and in Brazil and Southern Cone Countries (2004-09), launched the Regional Program “Safe cities for Women, safe cities for all”; a pioneer in define the feminist urbanisms.
Emeritus Professor of the National University of Cordoba, Dr Honoris Causa National University of Rosario, and Honorarium Professor of the National University of Tucumán, all in Argentina. Chair Professor in Architecture and former Director of the INVIHAB –Research Institute on Housing and Habitat -, currently the Director of the Master Course on Housing and Cities.
Executive Director of the well-recognized NGO CISCSA, in Argentina, cofounder of the Women and Habitat Network of LAC, co-founder of Huairou Commission, cofounder of Articulación Feminista Marcosur; also the cofounder and chair of the Working Group Women, Gender and Diversity of the Global Platform for the Right to the City. Active member of the International Habitat Coalition -HIC- elected Vice President (2000-2002), Feminism and Women´s movement representative in the International Board of HIC (2018-2024).
Former Chair of AGGI UN Habitat, and present and active member. First Prize Trajectory of the BIAU Iberoamerican Bienal of Architecture and Urbanism. Gender expert of UCLG.
Author of books, scientific articles, chapters of books and an influencer as feminist urbanist.
Adriana Allen Bio
Adriana Allen is Professor of Development Planning and Urban Sustainability at UCL The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), and former President of Habitat International Coalition (Allen, 2019-23). Originally from Argentina, she is an academic activist with over 35 years of international experience in research, pedagogy, advocacy, and advisory and capacity-building undertakings in almost 30 countries across the Global South.
Through the lens of housing and land, risk, water, sanitation, food and health, her work adopts an environmental justice and feminist perspective to look at the interface between everyday city-making practices and planned interventions and their capacity to generate transformative spaces, places, and socio-environmental relations. She has a long trajectory as a housing rights activist and is a founding member of the Hub for Housing Justice (HHJ), an international collaborative initiative led by a group of civil society networks and research organisations working together by co-designing agendas, sharing resources, aligning advocacy efforts and promoting learning and action across different contexts. Her most recent books include Untamed Urbanisms (2016), Environmental Justice and Resilience in the Global South (2017), Urban Water Trajectories (2017), Handbook of Urban Global Health (2019) and The Routledge Handbook of Urban Resilience (2020).