MAPS webinar on migration and the right to housing

👉🏽 SAVE THE DATE : 🗓️ Friday, 13 March, 2026 h 11:00 12:00 | 📍 online with google meet

⇩⇩  REGISTRATION NOW AVAILABLE HERE ⇩⇩ 

Migration and the right to housing: international exchange on Community Land Trusts

with local activists of Milango Project (Matharé, Nairobi, Kenia) and  Geert De Pauw, co-president of the International Center for CLT.

Chair: Laura Colini, University Iuav of Venice

As part of the EU MAPS Project, coordinated by Sapienza University of Rome, we are pleased to invite you to a webinar dedicated to examining the role of Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in fostering the inclusion of foreign migrants within local housing and land governance systems.

This webinar brings together researchers and practitioners to explore how CLTs can serve as innovative institutional frameworks that promote long-term housing security, collective stewardship, and equitable participation for informal settlement communities and for foreign migrants in particular often excluded from conventional housing markets and decision-making structures.

A key focus of the session will be the exchange between Milango, project located in Matharé Nairobi, with the participation of local activists and the experience of Community Land Trust Brussels with  Geert De Pauw co-president of the International Center for CLT, about transnational learning processes and inclusive governance models. The discussion will highlight comparative experiences and methodological insights on: CLTs “how to” as instruments for reducing structural inequalities in access to housing focussingon the case of Matharé. Participatory mechanisms that foster representation and shared ownership, engaging foreign migrants in CLT creation and governance Cross-border knowledge exchange within the global CLT movement.

The webinar is intended for scholars, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working at the intersection of migration studies, urban governance, housing justice, and community-led development.

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Milango Housing Projects is a community-based organization located in the informal settlement of Mathare Valley, Nairobi, Kenya. Milango started in 2022 with the mission of achieving sustainable, positive change in regards to the human right to housing, and was officially registered in february 2024. 

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Geert De Pauw has over 30 years’ experience advocating for the right to housing in the city of Brussels. After a 2008 visit to Champlain Housing Trust, he championed the creation of a Community Land Trust (CLT) in Brussels, coordinating its feasibility study and later serving as CLT Brussels’ coordinator from 2013 to 2025. He now leads innovation, advocacy and is co-president of the International Center for CLTs.

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Laura Colini is PhD in Urban, Regional and Environmental Design, Habil. in Urban Studies. For over twenty years, she has worked on socio-spatial inequalities and multilevel public policies on housing and migration as researcher and policy advisor to major European programmes and international organizations. Programme Expert for URBACT (2004–2023), she advised hundreds of municipalities on housing, migration, education, culture, and urban regeneration. She contributed to EU Urban Agenda Partnerships on Affordable Housing, Urban Poverty, Migrant Inclusion, and Culture, and evaluated New European Bauhaus projects. Researcher at IUAV University of Venice (H-City, UNESCO Chair on Migration) and adjunct professor in Venice, Florence, and Paris (EUP). Co-founder of Tesserae (Berlin) and MiMetis (Italy), member of the European Responsible Housing Award Jury, INURA, and Forum Sociale per l’Abitare. Laura is actually Sr Researchers contracted for MAPS Project by the Unesco Chair on the Social And Spatial Inclusion of International Migrants – Urban Policies and Practices based at the University Iuav of Venice.

* The MAPS Project—coordinated by the UNESCO Chair in Migrations, Population, and Development at Sapienza University of Rome— promotes evidence-based policy solutions on migration and displacement and involves a multidisciplinary consortium from Europe and Africa. Partner institutions include six Italian universities hosting UNESCO Chairs (Sapienza, Udine, University Iuav of Venice, Brescia, Ferrara, and Reggio Calabria), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Dodoma (Tanzania), the University of Kabale (Uganda), and AMREF International University (Kenya). Advisory institutions contributing to the MAPS initiative include the IOM Regional Data Hub for West and Central Africa, the Catholic University of Rwanda, and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).