Maimunah Mohd Sharif is Mayor of Kuala Lumpur and Advisor for Sustainable Urbanisation, Government of Malaysia.

She served as Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Human SettlementsProgramme (UN-Habitat) from 2018 to 2024.

Ms. Sharif was the first woman to be appointed as President of the Municipal Council of Seberang Perai in 2011. As mayor of a local authority, she introduced Gender Responsive Participatory Budgeting to integrate gender perspectives into the governance process as a tool to mainstream gender into budgetary and development policy and planning. In 2017, she was appointed Mayor of the City Council of Penang Island, where as Director of Planning, she developed the Bayan Lepas Free Trade zone, one of the world’s top three manufacturing hubs for microchips and electronics.

As Executive Director of UN-Habitat, working together with Member States, she successfully convened three World Urban Forums and two UN-Habitat Assemblies. During her tenure, the General Assembly endorsed International Zero Waste Day and World Clean Up Day in recognition of the global waste challenge. During COP27 in Sham El-Sheikh, she convened the first ministerial meeting on climate change and urbanisation. This was expanded at COP28 and at COP29, where she continued advocating for the recognition of local contributions to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

During her tenure at UN-Habitat, Maimunah also introduced the City Investment Facility to help build local capacity to secure and manage financing for sustainable urbanisation. She strengthened the mandate of UN-Habitat as an integral member of the International Action Standing Committee for humanitarian action in conflict zones. She remains a passionate advocate for women-led cities and served as the Secretary-General’s International Gender Champion, setting up the Nairobi IGC headquarters.

Upon her return to Malaysia, the Prime Minister of Malaysia appointed Maimunah Mayor of Kuala Lumpur as well as Advisor on Sustainable Urbanisation. As Mayor of Malaysia’s capital city, she is the head of City Hall serving 2.1 million citizens in an urban conurbation of 10 million and servicing approximately 40% of Malaysia’s USD 332 billion-dollar economy. She is leading Malaysia’s climate commitment of a carbon neutral capital city by 2040. Kuala Lumpur’s aspiration is to be a city for all by that time based on Mayor Maimunah’s CATEE policy to ensure City Hall is competent, accountable, transparent, efficient and effective.

Maimunah also sits on the board of various local government networks including UCLG, ICLEI, WeGO, Mayors for Migration and is jury member of the Lee Kuan Yew World Cities Award, the King’s Foundation Awards, the Shanghai Awards for Sustainable Urbanisation in Cities as well as the WeGo Smart Cities Awards. She was also the Chief Panel member of the BRICS Urban Future Awards.

She holds a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Town Planning Studies from the University of
Wales Institutes of Science and Technology, United Kingdom and a Master of Science in Planning
studies from the Malaysia Science University.