Profile

Somsook Boonyabancha, former Director of the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) in Thailand, currently serves as an advisor to the CODI board and as Chairperson of the Baan Mankong Program Committee. She previously held the position of Secretary-General of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, a coalition dedicated to the development of housing solutions for the urban poor across Asia. Born in 1951 in Thailand, Boonyabancha earned her degree from the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University. She furthered her education by completing the Housing and Urbanization Course in Copenhagen, Denmark, during 1977-1978. In recognition of her contributions to the field, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Architecture by the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University in 2023.

She has been working extensively on urban poor housing development and slum upgrading in Thailand and other Asia countries for the past 30 years. Her particular expertise is in orienting the development of community driven, community-led development to improve urban community housing, community welfare and rural community land and housing development. During her years at CODI, she carried out a national city-wide community upgrading process – this process has now been replicated in cities across Thailand. Apart from her involvement with the urban community, she has extensive experience in community-led development processes on various rural development activities, linking rural and urban areas, and community-led disaster rehabilitation.