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In remembrance of Yves Cabannes, UCL Emeritus Professor of Development Planning

17 January 2025

The academic community of The Bartlett Development Planning Unit are deeply saddened by the news that our colleague and friend, Professor Yves Cabannes, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday 12 January 2025 at the age of 72.

Prof Yves Cabannes

Yves was DPU’s Professor of Development Planning between September 2006 and March 2015 when he retired from UCL. He was a distinguished scholar, lecturer and activist, having worked in over 60 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. At the core of his work was a profound engagement with social justice and the respect of human rights. His research work centred around urban agriculture and food sovereignty, collective and communal forms of land tenure, and local governance, including the development of urban management tools such as participatory budgeting, a Brazilian innovation to involve local communities in making decisions about the investment budgets of municipalities.

Yves was a passionate defender of marginalised urban communities and used his vast network of contacts among scholars, practitioners and international aid agency staff to raise awareness of the plight of thousands of people, while steering efforts to build staff capacity in municipal governments, non-governmental organisations and universities. Between 2004 and 2010 through his work as Chairperson of the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions to the Executive Director of UN-Habitat (AGFE), he supported urban people’s movements and their struggles against arbitrary evictions across many countries, travelling to work with them, connect them to others, and to document their resistance.

Prior to UCL, he worked for three years as a lecturer in Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Between 1997 and 2003 he was the Regional Coordinator of the UN-Habitat/UNDP Urban Management Program for Latin America and the Caribbean based in Quito, Ecuador. There, he oversaw the production of numerous studies and training programmes to improve the effectiveness of municipal governments, a role that saw him visiting tens of cities in the region while widening his already considerable network of contacts.

Yves was a supportive mentor, teacher, coordinator and friend, and after his retirement returned every year to the DPU to teach MSc students and collaborate with DPU colleagues on research and activism. He was a systematic thinker with unbounded levels of energy, travelling frequently to meetings, conferences, training events, and street demonstrations in distant cities, at a pace that was only slightly reduced by illness in recent years. His considerable height and mastery of empirical facts added to the feeling of authority wherever he went, but his personal warmth quickly put people at ease. He was a consummate polyglot, who could quickly switch from his native French to Spanish, Portuguese and English.  Born in south-west France, he also spoke Languedoc and was at ease speaking Catalan. He used these qualities to great effect, from bringing people together to putting pressure on governments and international aid agencies.

His loss is deeply mourned by a large range of people, from leaders of poor urban communities and social movements to municipal officials, United Nations staff, former students, and friends. Our thoughts and solidarity are with Cecilia Delgado, his widow, and his children. 

To see Yves's publications, which demonstrate the breadth and impact of his work, please visit: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/3840-yves-cabannes/publications