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The Asia-Link programme was launched at the beginning of 2002 as an initiative by the European Union (EU) to foster regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in European Union Member States and South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. This five-year programme, which has a total budget of EUR 40 million, aims to provide support to European and Asian higher education institutions in the areas of human resource development, curriculum development and institutional and systems development.

The project

In the framework of this programme, four higher education institutions will implement a project titled "Curriculum Development for Urban Planning and Management with a special emphasis on Poverty Alleviation (UPA)".

Partner institutions

These four higher education institutions are:

• The International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), The Netherlands
• University of Dortmund (UD), Faculty of Spatial Planning, Germany
• Wuhan University (WHU), School of Urban Studies (SUS), P.R. China
• University of the Philippines at Diliman (UP), National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) and School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP), The Philippines

Output

The project will result in five educational packages consisting of a curriculum, textbooks, readers, audiovisuals, maps, etc. The material contained in each package will be enough for 3 weeks teaching. The packages are:

• Poverty
  Problem definition, problem structuring and understanding of drivers of the processes leading to urban and rural poverty
• Land management
  Institutional setting in which land policy and land management instruments are developed and applied
• Best practices in planning
  Urban planning and regional planning at different levels of public administration
• GIS for Poverty Mapping and Poverty Alleviation
  Spatial and temporal differentiation and mapping of poverty. Data capture, data processing, statistics and data presentation techniques
• New approaches and instruments for poverty alleviation
  Using spatial information handling tools to support poverty alleviation processes by land management

Activities

Each of the partners has been assigned the development of an educational package. However, the packages will not be developed in isolation, but rather through an intense process of knowledge exchange between the partners. To this purpose, the project has established a dedicated virtual platform via which the partners can communicate and give feedback. In addition, there will be a series of review meetings. Once the packages have been finalised, the partners can select the material they would like to use in their courses ("shopping"). The final activity is then a training of trainers programme. Core team members will visit each other and have on-the-job-training, so that the teachers can familiarize themselves with the new material ("embedding").

Duration

The project started on 20 September 2002 and will last for 3 years, i.e. until 20 September 2005. The support from the EU is EUR 300.000, which covers 73% of the project costs.

Justification

The specific topic of Urban Planning and Management and Poverty Alleviation has been selected because it is increasingly realized that the continuous process of rapid urbanization and rural urban migration leads in many countries to urban poverty. The urban planning and management mechanisms in place simply cannot cope with the inflow of people. Increasing population densities, unplanned residential areas, lack of facilities such as schools, clinics, roads and green areas are examples of a deteriorating living environment in cities. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the understanding of poverty, develop Urban Poverty Alleviation strategies and introduce land management concepts in the urban-regional planning practice to be able to prevent and battle poverty. The challenge is to manage the urbanisation process to ensure that it becomes a mechanism through which poverty can be reduced.

The underlying idea is that Asian countries with such diverse experience as China and the Philippines can learn a lot from each other. They, in turn, can also learn from densely settled, but carefully planned societies like the Netherlands and Germany. And these European countries can learn from the problems in the East.

Multiplier effects

Given the fact that the urban poverty problems, which the project will be tackling, are worldwide and on the increase, the prospects for extension of the results and use by other universities are very real indeed. We distinguish the following possibilities:

• Straightforward replication. Other universities can use the material that has been developed.
• Thematic expansion. The design of the project is such that it is easy to add on new material to the common pool. The scope could be widened to include, for example, subjects such as regional planning or environmental programmes.
• Partner extension. Interested universities can become a partner in the network and help develop additional teaching and training material. Towards the end, the project will adopt a pro-active attitude in that sense. It is envisaged to approach universities from countries with experiences and urban planning practices that are again different from those of the present partners.
• More research. The results of the project will provide an excellent 'feeding ground' for more research into the phenomena of urban poverty and the ways and means to alleviate it.

Contact details partner institutions

International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands

Website: www.itc.nl
Contact person: Paul Schoonackers (Project Coordinator)
E-mail: schoonackers@itc.nl

University of Dortmund, Faculty of Spatial Planning, Dortmund, Germany

Website: www.uni-dortmund.de (in German)
Contact person: Prof. Dr. Volker Kreibich
E-mail: geo@rp.uni.dortmund.de

Wuhan University, School of Urban Studies, Wuhan, P.R. China

Website: www.whu.edu.cn/en (in English)
Contact persons: Prof. Zhao Bing and Du Ningrui
E-mail: bing_zhao@mail.china.com and duningrui@sus.whu.edu.cn

University of the Philippines, National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) and School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP), Manila, The Philippines

Website: www.up-ncpag.org
Contact persons: Prof. Ma. Concepcion Alfiler (NCPAG) and Prof. Dolores Endriga (SURP)
E-mail: ncpag@broline.com and dolores.endriga@up.edu.ph

In the week 9-13 December 2002, the Asia-Link kick-off workshop took place at ITC. This workshop defined the content of the five educational packages that will be developed and assigned the responsibility for developing one of these packages to each partner institution involved. The workshop also agreed on a detailed work plan for the coming three years.