The World's Premier Conference on Urban Development

An experienced advisor, Rebecca Gaskin Gain has helped clients achieve their goals in international business and law for nearly three decades. In 2004, she sat on a panel at the UN-Habitat's World Urban Forum in Barcelona, Spain. It was the forum's second annual gathering, and Rebecca Gaskin Gain focused her discussion on the development of a low-income mortgage product for Standard Bank.

A program by the United Nations, UN-Habitat is dedicated to working toward a better urban future. Its mission is to encourage socially and environmentally sustainable human infrastructure, from public transportation to sanitation and electricity. To this end, it founded the World Urban Forum in 2001.

At the biennial event, thousands convene to discuss challenges surrounding urban growth. More than 23,000 participants attended the 2018 forum. In part due to its high-level participation, the World Urban Forum has earned a reputation as the world's premier conference on urban development. The 10th World Urban Forum will take place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in 2020.

Ne La Thiass by Cheikh Lo

Rebecca Gaskin Gain is an accomplished business and legal advisor with extensive investment planning and management experience. When she isn’t working, she is a fan of indigenous African music from Congo and Senegal. One of Rebecca Gaskin Gain’s favorite Senegalese singers is Cheikh Lo.

A native of Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cheikh Lo taught himself to play guitar and drums as a child. At the age of 21, he got his professional start as percussionist with the popular regional group Orchestra Volta Jazz. 

Cheikh Lo established himself as a viable solo artist in 1996 with the release of his debut album Ne La Thiass. Roughly translated as “gone in a flash,” Ne La Thiass blends the Mande, Wolof, and Congolese musical styles of West Africa with the Cuban music that first rose to popularity in Africa during Cheikh Lo’s youth.

Senaglese superstar Youssou N’Dour decided to produce this benchmark album after hearing a rough demo of Cheikh Lo’s music. The musicians backing Mr. Lo on Ne La Thiass hailed from Youssou N’Dour’s band, Super Etoile.

Addressing SME Funding Issues

As a principal with Washington, DC’s Nexant, Rebecca Gaskin Gain advises on a range of African power projects with involvement from the US federal government. Over the years she has conducted and developed businesses in multiple international sectors. One of Rebecca Gaskin Gain’s key areas of professional interest is SME (small and medium enterprise) finance.

Due to the very nature of small and medium enterprises, SME funding presents many significant challenges. Smaller business ventures are generally younger, more informally structured, and offer fewer publicly available statistics, facts, and figures. They also tend to operate in unfamiliar businesses sectors and possess fewer assets to put up as collateral.

Given these challenges, business leaders and policy makers have developed several strategies to broaden SME financing access. These strategies include the establishment of credit information-sharing initiatives that encourage banks to fund SMEs. Other attempts to boost SME financing operations range from public credit guarantees for SME investment to legal reforms that allow movable assets to serve as collateral. In many cases, government initiatives have provided SME funding outside of the bank system by establishing secondary exchanges.

UN-Habitat Focuses on Energy in Urban Areas

Serving as a principal at Nexant, Inc., Rebecca Gaskin Gain leverages nearly three decades of experience in international business and law to advance global energy transactions and drive priority projects abroad. In addition to her professional endeavors, Rebecca Gaskin Gain served as a consultative board member for UN-Habitat.

The UN-Habitat program is an established United Nations effort focused on creating socially and environmentally sustainable urban environments across the world. With experience spanning 40 years, UN-Habitat is world-recognized for its expertise and breadth of knowledge related to urbanization. Experts predict that by the year 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban areas. Many of these city centers are unprepared for the influx of people. Their lack of housing and adequate infrastructure can cause sizable problems related to health, safety, poverty, and pollution. UN-Habitat’s programs and initiatives work to address these issues.

Reliable energy resources are an essential component of functional infrastructure in developing urban areas. In 2012, more than 82 percent of the world’s energy came from fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. These limited resources can cause unpredictable energy disruptions due to price increases and decreased supply. They can also feed regional conflicts and unhealthy political pressures.

The unreliable power supply leads to economic harm and disruption of industrial and commercial activities. In order to combat these negative patterns, UN-Habitat urges urban areas to embrace renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro, and biomass. The organization works with urban leaders to develop and implement sustainable energy plans that embrace renewable sources, thereby combatting the unreliability and negative environmental effects of fossil fuels.

Other strategies that will help create reliable energy in global cities include:

-Building awareness of the energy problem.

-Reducing energy consumption and changing long-held patterns while embracing energy-saving techniques.

-Ensuring that distribution of energy is inclusive and accessible to all.

-Assessing meteorological and geographical attributes of an area to determine which natural resources would be best for energy production.

-Utilizing smart grids that can balance supply and demand more efficiently.