In her current position, Mrs. Kamal-Chaoui is conducting an extensive programme of work on urban issues, focusing on city competitiveness, urban governance and local finance, infrastructure and environment, climate change and green growth, social cohesion, immigrant integration and distressed areas (www.oecd.org/gov/cities). This programme includes among others a series of more than 20 OECD Metropolitan Reviews (e.g. Milan, Madrid, Cape Town, Toronto, Stockholm, Seoul, Istanbul, Montreal, Mexico City, Guangdong, Venice, Chicago, etc.), National Urban policy Reviews (eg Kora, Poland, Chile, etc), thematic reports (e.g. Competitive Cities in the Global Economy (2006) and Cities and Climate Change (2010)) and a unique statistical international database of 90 functional metro-regions with 1.5 and more inhabitants. Mrs. Kamal-Chaoui animates the work of the OECD Working Party on Urban Areas, which is presently the main international forum for discussion and exchange of experience in the field of urban policy among national senior public officials. She also regularly organizes OECD international conferences in collaboration with City Mayors and is in charge of the OECD Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers on Urban Development. Previously, she had worked on regional development policies, multi-level governance and fiscal federalism, social and labour market policies, as well as in other OECD departments, where she was involved in the reviews on regulatory reform of Korea and Japan, as well as in a study on Foreign Direct Investment in China. Before joining the OECD in 1997, Lamia worked as a consultant for the Office of the French Prime Minister’s Commissariat General du Plan where she co-produced the report «Trade Policy under Imperfect Competition ». She has also had experience as a journalist for several print and broadcast media. She holds two Masters Degrees, one in Macroeconomics (University of Paris Dauphine) and one in World History (University of René Diderot, Paris).