Sao Paulo: Elisabete França, Executive Secretary, Sao Paulo Housing Department

Elisabete França is currently Executive Director of the Mananciais Program at the Housing Department of the city of Sao Paulo and Professor at Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado. 

A public manager since the 1990s, she has been contributing to the formulation and implementation of public policies related to housing programs, environmental recovery in precarious areas and urban mobility, especially in the City of São Paulo.  

From 2005 to 2012, she was responsible for the largest favela-upgrading project in Latin America, the Favela Upgrading Program of the Municipality of São Paulo, awarded with the Scroll of Honours from UN-Habitat, in 2012.  

Since 2005, she has coordinated several studios with international partners, in order to disclose the actions of the municipality in the area of social housing, with Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and ETH, with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam and Aedes Pfefferberg.  

She has also been dedicated to publicising the production of social housing projects and slum upgrading programs, organising several exhibitions and publications. She was the curator of the Brazilian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2002 and the coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the International Congress of Architects UIA2021RIO.