Farah Makki

Farah Makki is an urban practitioner, researcher, facilitator, and learning and transition process designer. She supports high-level consultations and multilateral collaborations for sustainable urban living, creative civic engagement, and change-making across the EU-South MED region. Her approach is centered around “Mediation Culture” and integrates urban planning with social sciences, independent culture, and system practice to support the ecosystems of placemaking. Since 2013, she has collaborated with organizations and universities to implement urban and social innovation processes. Her contributions span participatory urban planning and action research programs promoting active citizenship and culture-led development. As a Post-Doc research fellow at Politecnico di Milano's DAStU since 2021, she supports urban living labs for ecological transitions aimed at healthier urban environments. Since 2019, she has contributed to regional strategic programming in the EU Med region with foundations, philanthropies, and policymakers (e.g. MitOst, zusa, Culture Resource, Cultural Relations Platform/EU DG NEAR, Ford Foundation, iac Berlin - a Do & Think Tank for impact networks). This included supporting partnership building and cooperation to foster ecosystems of placemaking and independent civic cultures, designing and leading high-level participatory consultation processes for regional grants and policymaking, enhancing cultural and civic ecosystems of change-making, and conducting research and developing funding and policy recommendations.