Ms Parul Agarwala is an urban development practitioner with experience in strategic policy analysis, land use and spatial planning, housing and economic development. She has worked in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Palestine, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the United States. During her tenure with UN-Habitat, she has worked on promoting the New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals into the national policy frameworks on urban development, housing and informal settlements in the South Asia Region. Her major contribution to the evidence-based policy propositions and knowledge products, including, “Urban National Priority Programme” and “Future of Afghan Cities,” a urban atlas of all strategic urban centers in the country using pioneering population and land-use data and through new concepts and innovative ideas, have shaped the urban ministry’s
agenda in Afghanistan. She has been instrumental in fostering local livelihoods and people-centered approaches as Programme Manager of the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s flagship initiative, “Clean and Green Cities” project in twelve cities. Prior to UN-Habitat, she has worked as a City Planner in the New York City Department of City Planning, where she gained hands-on experience in translating policy guidelines into zoning regulations for legislative enforcement of city-wide and neighborhood-level initiatives. She has also worked with the World Bank’s Global Practices of Urban, Rural, Disaster Risk and Social Development, and Water Practice based in Washington DC. In this capacity, she worked on several multi-sectoral operational projects and analytical work encompassing regional economic development, urbanization, urban renewal and transformation, land and housing, and governance in South Asia.