Prof. Adriana Allen ends her mandate as President of the Habitat International Coalition

HIC is a global, independent, and non-profit network working for the defence, promotion and realisation of human rights related to habitat and a safe place for all to live in peace and with dignity across urban and rural areas. The Coalition emerged from a civil society initiative at Habitat I in 1976, and today brings together a social force of almost 400 member organisations from across the world, including The Bartlett Development Planning Unit.

Prof. Adriana Allen started her mandate as HIC elected President in December 2019, which concluded at the end of 2023. During this four-year period, she worked consistently with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Adequate Housing and others, and many HIC allies such as the Global Platform for the Right to the City, Huairou Commission, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and Slum Dwellers International (SDI), towards the democratisation of the UN multilateral system, the recognition of climate justice as a collective human right, and the convergence of social and feminist movements, while fighting against the hyper-financialisation of housing and land, and the ongoing urbicide in Palestine and other parts of the world.

Internally, together with HIC’s Secretary General she led an institutional review aimed at strengthening the Coalition’s internal life and governance, as well as HIC strategic plan for the coming years. She also convened a series of collective filmed-documented reflections on the critical pedagogies practiced on the ground by the social organisations affiliated to HIC and expanded their application through five cross-regional co-learning spaces, among other mechanisms devoted to pluralise and root the Coalition’s advocacy work across international fora.

Throughout her mandate, Adriana emphasised the urgent need to put in place safeguarding mechanisms to protect and realise the right to adequate housing, land and to the city for all. And to do so from a feminist perspective, one that recognises and protects diverse forms of tenure and challenges patriarchal relations and neocolonial extractivism, while advancing grassroots collective control by those typically marginalised, such as women, indigenous people, tenants, and migrants.

Throughout January 2024, she completed the handing over to the new elected President and Vice-President of HIC, Grace Menzi Chikumo from Zambia and Guillermo Marzioni from Argentina. In February 2024, the HIC community celebrated her work through a wonderful farewell attended by members organisations and allies from all regions.

To learn more about Adriana’s work as HIC President over the last four years, kindly visit here.