Biography

Giulia Lavagna is an international housing and land policy advisor with over a decade of experience at the intersection of urban governance, public finance, and institutional reform. She works with governments, international organizations, and development partners to design and implement evidence-based housing and land solutions that promote affordability, inclusivity, and economic growth.

Giulia holds a PhD in Public and Urban Policy, an MA in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and an MA in International Cooperation from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya in Barcelona (Spain). Her interdisciplinary background — spanning architecture, policy, and international development — shapes her integrated approach to housing systems and land management.

Over more than ten years within the United Nations system, primarily with UN-Habitat, she managed complex multi-country initiatives across different regions and fragile contexts, advising national and local governments on housing policy reform, land management, and land-based finance instruments. Her expertise includes housing systems reform, land and property taxation, land value capture, and innovative financing mechanisms for affordable housing.

She has led programmes examining how land-based revenues can strengthen service delivery and support reconstruction and peacebuilding in countries such as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan. In parallel, she has supported housing policy reforms in Angola, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Paraguay, and Saudi Arabia, contributing to institutional frameworks that unlocked significant international financing, including a USD 330 million World Bank loan for Angola’s housing sector.

Giulia also works at the nexus of housing and migration governance. Through the Mediterranean City-to-City Migration Project, she led comparative assessments of migration and housing policies across cities in Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, Italy, and France, facilitating dialogue between policymakers and strengthening local governance responses to urban demographic pressures.

Beyond project implementation, she has played a key role in global policy development and normative guidance. She is the lead author of Executive Director Reports to the Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group on Adequate Housing for All, addressing multilateral support to housing systems and proposing recommendations on housing finance. She has contributed to major international publications, including UNECE’s #Housing 2030, UCLG’s Rethinking Housing Policies, and the UN Secretary-General’s report on affordable housing and social protection systems to address homelessness.

Giulia provides global policy advice on housing affordability, land governance reform, and land-based financing frameworks that shape sustainable urban development across diverse institutional contexts. Her work bridges policy ambition and institutional feasibility, ensuring that housing solutions are economically sound, socially inclusive, and territorially balanced.

She speaks fluently English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, and regularly works in multilingual and cross-cultural policy environments.

Housing is foundational to dignity, opportunity, and social stability. As a mother of two young daughters, she combines professional expertise with personal conviction in advancing housing systems that support both present and future generations.