Anacláudia Rossbach of Brazil was appointed Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) at the Under-Secretary-General level for a term of four years on 7 June 2024. She was elected by the UN General Assembly following nomination by the United Nations Secretary-General. Ms. Rossbach assumed office on 12 August 2024.

Ms. Rossbach is an economist with more than 20 years of experience working on precarious and informal urban settlements, social housing and urban policies, together with designing and implementing strategies for public, social and private organizations with local, national and international stakeholders.

Prior to her appointment as Executive Director of UN-Habitat, she was the Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. From 2014 to 2022, she worked for Cities Alliance, serving as the Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, where she supported communities of practice, promoted the transfer and exchange of knowledge, and provided advisory services on housing and urban policies in Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Chile and Paraguay, among others. She also led the Organization’s global programme on informality in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. From 2005 to 2014, Ms. Rossbach served as a Senior Housing Specialist at the World Bank, providing technical assistance and facilitating high-level policy dialogue to develop and implement housing solutions in several countries around the world. This includes in Brazil, where she had a leadership role in the design of large-scale housing and informal settlements upgrading programmes, and in India, Mozambique, the Philippines and South Africa.

She also worked for the Municipality of São Paulo and was the Founding Director of the non-governmental organization Interação, affiliated with Slums Dwellers International, developing high-impact projects in informal communities in the State of São Paulo and the city of Recife, Brazil.

Ms. Rossbach holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Master of Science in Political Economy from Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Brazil. She speaks English, German, Portuguese and Spanish and has an intermediate knowledge of French.