Daniel Biau Civil Engineer, Urban Planner, Former Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat

Daniel Biau holds a PhD in Sociology from Sorbonne University. He graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris as a Civil Engineer with specialization in urban planning in 1974. He has worked for the United Nations from 1988 to 2011 as a senior expert in housing and urban development policy. In this capacity, he has provided advice to more than 60 countries in all regions of the world and published many articles on urban issues. Daniel Biau has been a Deputy Executive Director and Director of the Regional and Technical Cooperation Division of UN-Habitat, the City Agency of the United Nations headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. Among other achievements, he has set the foundations of the biennial World Urban Forum as the most important multi-stakeholder gathering on urban issues. He has also been the lead drafter of three sets of International Guidelines on Decentralization (2007), Basic Services for All (2009) and Urban and Territorial Planning (2015), approved unanimously by all Member States of the United Nations.

Daniel Biau is currently an independent consultant (danielbiau.webnode.com) based in Paris and Nairobi, undertaking advisory missions for various UN agencies. In 2015, he published a book based on his worldwide experience titled “The Bridge and the City”.