As executive director of UN-HABITAT, Sharif will battle to boost donor funding for the 40-year-old agency, which fell dramatically under former Barcelona mayor Joan Clos. Another key focus will be implementing the agency’s New Urban Agenda, a 20-year vision for sustainable cities, adopted at last year’s Habitat III conference in Ecuador. UN-Habitat predicts the number of people living in cities will almost double to 7 billion in 2050 from 3.7 billion today, with many mired in squalor if urbanization is poorly managed.