Julio D. Dávila is Professor of Urban Policy and International Development and Director of the Development Planning Unit, UCL. He holds a civil engineering degree (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá), an MSc in urban development planning (UCL) and a PhD in urban economics and planning (UCL), and has over 25 years’ international experience in research, teaching and consultancy projects in over a dozen countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Prior to UCL, he worked as a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (London and Buenos Aires), and at the Colombian Government’s National Planning Department. As an academic interested in practice, in recent years much of his research work has focused on: the role of local government in progressive social and political transformation in developing countries; the governance dimensions of urban and peri-urban infrastructure, especially public transport, and water & sanitation; the intersection between planning and urban informality; and the linkages between rapid urbanisation and health. Julio’s latest book was launched at the World Urban Forum in Medellin and is an edited volume entitled “Urban Mobility and Poverty: Lessons from Medellin and Soacha, Colombia.”
