MAPS webinar on research proposal
👉🏽 SAVE THE DATE : 🗓️ Friday, 12 December, 2025 h 11:00 12:00 | 📍 online with google meet
Unsettled Grounds: Climate Risk, Migration, and the Quest for Secure Housing
Research proposal for Mapping Housing Conditions climate vulnerability and Inclusion for Migrants, Refugees, and Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Ethiopia, Kenya
by Laura Colini & Gianfranco Pozzer, SSIIM UNESCO Chair, University Iuav of Venice
Climate change, migration, and inadequate housing are tightly interlinked challenges. Yet in most Sub-Saharan countries international migrants, refugees, IDPs as well as internal migrants residing in informal settlements remain largely absent from national climate and housing policies. Moreover, international migrants and refugees often lack legal recognition and protection, limiting their rights to secure, adequate housing. Informal settlements and IDPs/refugee camps typically suffer from inadequate infrastructure, insecure tenure, and high exposure to floods, heat, and other climate-related risks. The project proposes a methodology applicable across the region, combined with in-depth testing on the ground at neighbourhood and camp level in Ethiopia and Kenya. By grounding its work in rigorous spatial multi-vulnerability assessment, policy analysis, and community perspectives, this research proposal intends to provide actionable, rights-based pathways for improving housing conditions and enhancing climate resilience. Ultimately, it aims to strengthen the ability of vulnerable communities to live safely, securely, and with dignity in an era of accelerating climate risk.
The webinar is intended to share the research idea with MAPS partners, gather further inputs from different disciplines, lay the basis for wider collaboration, and engage MAPS junior researchers based in Ethiopia and Kenya in the pilot activities.
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Laura Colini and Gianfranco Pozzer are 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.
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.
Gianfranco Pozzer is a PhD in New Technologies and Territorial and Environmental Information. His research focuses on urban and territorial studies, with particular attention to processes of urban and spatial transformation under dynamic conditions and multiple risks.
* 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).
