The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is proud to announce the recipients of its 13th annual Urban Leadership Awards, which recognize leaders who are guiding cities toward a sustainable and vibrant future. The 2017 awardees are Rose Molokoane, Deputy President, Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI); National Coordinator, South Africa Alliance and the Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP); and Co-Chair, World Urban Campaign and Victor Santiago Pineda, President, World ENABLED and Adjunct Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California-Berkeley. Penn IUR will honor the work of these exceptional leaders on April 25th at its 13th annual Urban Leadership Forum.

The Annual Penn IUR Urban Leadership Awards recognize exemplary thinkers who have demonstrated the vision to revitalize urban centers, respond to urban crises, and champion urban sustainability in the United States and around the globe. This year’s awardees exemplify true urban visionaries and the transformative effects such leaders can have on the fabric of the cities in which they work.

All media interested in attending the award event on April 25th can contact Deborah Lang at dlang@upenn.edu or 215.880.2372.

About the 2017 Awardees
​​​​​​​Rose Molokoane is Coordinator, South African Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP), and Deputy President and Management Committee Member, Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a global network of slum dweller federations in 33 countries across the Global South. In addition, she serves as Chair, UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign (WUC), and Co-Chair, Grassroots Constituency Group of WUC’s General Assembly of Partners. She is a resident of Oukasie township and member of the Oukasie savings scheme in a slum settlement outside Pretoria, South Africa. A veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, she is one of the most internationally recognized grassroots activists involved in land tenure and housing issues. FEDUP has helped more than 150,000 slum dwellers, the vast majority of whom are women, to pool their savings and improve their lives. This has won them sufficient standing to negotiate with government for progressive housing policy that has already produced 15,000 new homes and secured more than 1,000 hectares of government land for development. Molokoane has initiated federations of savings schemes throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She was awarded the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honor in 2005 for her struggle to bring land and homes to the poor.

Victor Santiago Pineda is President, World ENABLED, and Adjunct Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California-Berkeley. A globally recognized expert on disability policy, he teaches courses on planning theory, policy evaluation, and international community development and serves as a public member of the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. Previously, Pineda was Senior Research Fellow, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California-Berkeley, and UC-Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow for Academic Diversity. In 2003, Pineda founded World ENABLED to improve the participation outcomes for youth with disabilities through inclusive research and educational programs. He holds a Ph.D. from the Luskin School for Public Affairs at the University of California-Los Angeles and a Master in City and Regional Planning from the University of California-Berkeley.

About the Penn IUR Urban Leadership Award
Since 2005, Penn IUR has recognized innovators in urban affairs through the Urban Leadership Award. Past recipients include: Angela Glover Blackwell, President & CEO of PolicyLink; Jeremy Nowak, President of J Nowak and Associates; Michael Nutter, Former Mayor of Philadelphia; Renée Lewis Glover, Chair, Board of Directors, Habitat for Humanity International, and Former President and CEO, Atlanta Housing Authority; Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon, co-founders of Project HOME Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and former Mayor of Barcelona, Spain; Yael Lehmann, Executive Director of The Food Trust; Ridwan Kamil, Founder and Principal of Urbane Indonesia; Derek R.B. Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement, University of Chicago and former Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, White House Domestic Policy Council; Paul Levy, President and CEO, Philadelphia’s Center City District; Lily Yeh, Global Artist and Founder, Barefoot Artists; Raphael Bostic, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Jane Golden, Executive Director, City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program; Shirley Franklin, Mayor, City of Atlanta, GA; Parris Glendening, President, Smart Growth Leadership Institute, and former Governor, Maryland; Bruce Katz, Vice President and Founding Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution; William Hudnut III, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Urban Land Institute, and former Mayor, Indianapolis, IN; Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Mayor, City of Charleston, SC; and Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami and former Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

About Penn IUR
The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is dedicated to advancing cross-disciplinary urban-focused research, instruction, and civic engagement on issues relevant to cities around the world. As the global population becomes increasingly urban, understanding cities is vital to informed decision-making and public policy at the local, national, and international levels. Penn IUR focuses on research that informs the sustainable and inclusive twenty-first-century city. By providing a forum for collaborative scholarship and instruction at Penn and beyond, Penn IUR stimulates research and engages with urban practitioners and policymakers to inform urban policy.