Pierre-Arnaud Barthel is senior project manager and lead expert in the Local Governments and Urban Development Division in charge of operations at the French Agency for Development (AFD) in Paris. Focal point in charge of digital issues in urban development, he is also dealing with a portfolio of urban operations in Egypt, Ethiopia and Myanmar that AFD is financing. He was previously a senior lecturer in urban planning at the Institut Français d’Urbanisme (University of Paris-East) and wrote several papers and edited collective publications focusing on Arab Mediterranean Countries such as: Expérimenter la « ville durable » au Sud de la Méditerrannée (Éditions de l’Aube, 2011, co edited with Lamia Zaki) and “Arab cities, sustainable cities?” (Urban Environment, vol. 7, 2013, special issue co-edited with Éric Verdeil).