Conference Speakers

…has a long-term interest in urban studies. She completed her master on Urban Governance in 2009 at IHS, Erasmus University and achieved her Ph.D. Urban Housing Studies in Lincoln University, New Zealand in 2018. For nearly 15 years, Nguyen has been working on international projects building capacity for urban governments to improve public services and promote sustainable urban development. In 2018, Ms Nguyen involved in the V-LED project that mainstreams low emission development strategies in local planning, funded by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. In 2019 she co-authored a report on Best Practices of urban participatory governance in Vietnam, funded by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in Vietnam. She is now the project coordinator for the project on Improving Municipal Solid Waste Management (VnSWM project).
Vietnam has been active in nationalizing Vietnamese Sustainable Development Goals (VSDGs) through the national planning system. VSDGs, also addresses urban issues in SDG 11 that has been operationalized through New Urban Agenda 2030 by UN-Habitat and key urban actors. Different international-funded initiatives have been conducted by the Ministry of Construction, Un-Habitat Vietnam and the Association of Cities of Vietnam through international cooperation programs. Although the country has reported the achievement of some SDGs, challenges remains (i.e. poor housing conditions, municipal solid waste, traffic congestions, ext). These challenges result from existing urban governance issues and require solutions to, among others, strengthen national urban policy framework, enhance cross-sectoral coordination, and enhance decentralization to empower cities to play their potential role in implementing SDGs.

… is a political scientist at the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn, Germany. A senior researcher with DIE’s “Environmental Governance and TransformationIn der Politikwissenschaft, insbesondere in den Internationalen Beziehungen, bezeichnet die Transformation den Vorgang der grundlegenden Veränderung eines politischen Systems und damit auch die gegebene gesellschaftliche wie wirtschaftliche Ordnung. Dabei beschäftigt sich die Forschung vor allem mit Veränderungsprozessen in Staaten sowohl in die Richtung der Demokratisierung als auch in die Richtung der Ent-Demokratisierung. to Sustainability” programme, Steffen heads the institute’s climate governance project „Klimalog” (www.klimalog.info). His research generally addresses questions of international organization, global environmental governance and sustainable development with a special interest in the role of the United Nations and a regional focus on Africa. His current work is concerned, in particular, with the development dimension of global climate governance and its interlinkages with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Steffen holds a PhD in political science from the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Freie Universität Berlin and a Master’s degree from Hamburg University. He teaches international relations at Technische Universität Darmstadt and has published widely, including in Climate and Development, Global Environmental Change, Global Environmental Politics and Journal of Environment and Development.