Biographical Information

Valentina (Vale) Zuin was born and grew up in Milan, Italy, where she studied public management and economics at Bocconi University. Before going back to school for her Master’s, Vale has taught art and sport to street children in Equador, done field research on informal small scale entrepreneurs and street vendors in Peru, and worked on child labor and the informal economy at the International Labor Office in Geneva. She holds a Master in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT. She focused her research on a slum upgrading project in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil and was a part of a MIT team conducting a survey in a neighbourhood of Maputo, Mozambique. Right before joining IPER Vale was working for the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank as a technical assistance to the Planning Department of the National Directorate of Water of the Government of Mozambique, the peri-urban unit of the water regulator and the water utility of the capital city, Maputo. She has also worked in rural and peri-urban issues in Angola and did some work on small towns in the African continent. At IPER, Vale wants to focus on water service delivery in peri-urban areas in developing countries. She is interested in understanding how and under what conditions utilities do or learn to serve the unserved and the poor and how alternative delivery mechanisms (water resale, small scale providers) can be better integrated with the service provided by utilities. Vale loves traveling and learning about different cultures and traditions, playing tennis, swimming, sking, having nice dinners with friends, Nutella, and walking and diving in caribbean beaches.