Alison Brown

Alison Brown is Professor of Urban Planning and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning, where she heads the Informal Economy Research Observatory. She is an urban planner and development policy expert with extensive experience in academia and professional practice. Her research and consultancy focusses on urban planning and sustainability, governance, the Right to the City, urban livelihoods and the informal economy, and has included projects in 24 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. She is leading several large research projects on the informal economy under the ESRC/DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation and the ESRC/DFID Growth Research Programme on: law, rights and regulation; access to finance for urban micro-enterprises, and economic recovery in post-conflict cities. She is a member of the Habitat III Policy Unit 1 on the Right to the City, and Cities for All.

Alison has published widely on the informal economy and rights-based approaches to development, with an edited book on Rebel Streets and the Informal Economy: Street Trade and the Law to be published early in 2017, and research reports for DFID’s Evidence on Demand series on Planning for Sustainable and Inclusive Cities in the Global South, and Livelihoods and Urbanisation. She is planning advisor to the global advocacy group, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment, Globalizing and Organizing), editor of the Commonwealth e-Journal of Local Governance, and a board member of the NGO Reall (formerly Homeless International).