William Cobbett has been Manager of the Cities Alliance since May 2006. He joined the Cities Alliance in March 2001 on secondment from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in Nairobi, where he had designed and launched the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure. Born in South Africa, William was overall coordinator of Planact, an urban NGO providing policy and technical support to civic organisations and trades unions. He moved to the African National Congress (ANC) headquarters in 1992, where he was National Coordinator of the Department of Local and Regional Government, and Housing. After the 1994 General election, he was appointed Director General of the National Department of Housing, reporting to Minister Joe Slovo. Prior to joining the United Nations, he was Director of Housing for Cape Town. William has a BA (Hons) degree from Middlesex Polytechnic in London, and lives in Maryland with his wife Mary, and four children.
