AAPS news

The AAPS has an opportunity to convert this website into a wiki, which will essentially be an interactive resource from which you can download documents, have discussions, ask questions of a number of experts and generally do what you can on Wikipedia, Facebook and other social networking sites. More general information on wikis is available by clicking here (from Wikipedia, very appropriately).

In early July 2010 another highly successful AAPS case study workshop came to an end. The venue was located in Nungua village, on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. As with the previous workshops, held in Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg respectively, the proceedings in Accra were dedicated to promoting the use of the case study research and teaching methodologies amongst African planning educators.

The Association of African Planning Schools welcomes another Tanzanian planning school to the network, taking the total AAPS membership to 40 schools.

The geographic profile of AAPS continues to expand, as we warmly welcome another Sudanese planning school to the network. The joining of Omdurman Islamic University (OIU) follows that of the University of Khartoum in May this year.

The membership of the AAPS grows month by month, as our email and website updates attract more attention from planning educators in Africa. We have great pleasure in announcing the addition of the Federal University of Technology, located in Akure, Nigeria, to the members' roll.

The AAPS team has great pleasure in welcoming another Nigerian planning school to the AAPS network.

Pictures of the recent AAPS workshop dedicated to the promotion of case research and teaching methodology are available below:

AAPS takes pleasure in welcoming two new planning schools to the network.

The second instalment of the AAPS case study research and publication workshop series was held in Johannesburg from 28 April to 1 May 2010. This followed the widespread acclaim granted to the first workshop, held in Dar es Salaam in early February 2010.

Time marches on. The event of the year approaches… it may surprise you that it is not the 2010 Football World Cup. The second workshop of the AAPS case study research and publication project will be held in Johannesburg from 28 April to 1 May 2010. This follows the success of the pilot workshop held in Dar es Salaam in early February 2010 (more information on that event is available here).

The pilot workshop for the AAPS case study research and publication project was held from 3 to 5 February 2010, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The proceedings were facilitated by Prof Bent Flyvbjerg (Oxford University) and Dr Fred Lerise (GTZ/Ardhi University). Participants were drawn from a diverse profile of AAPS member countries including Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania.

Other participants included Prof Jorgen Andreassen (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts), Dr Tumsifu Nnkya (Tanzanian Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements Development), Prof Vanessa Watson and Nancy Odendaal (both of the University of Cape Town).

AAPS takes pleasure in welcoming the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Maseno University, Kenya, to the network. The Department offers two planning programmes: a Bachelor of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning and a Master of Arts in Project Planning and Management, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in Planning. There are currently 112 students registered in the Department. The Head of Department is Dr George Wagah. He can be contacted at ggwagah@yahoo.

AAPS has been successful in securing additional grant funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for capacity building in case study research and publication. This project will commence in January 2010, and will run for one year. The approved budget for this project is US$ 319,000. For more details on the project, follow this link or contact Nancy Odendaal at Nancy.Odendaal@uct.ac.za.

AAPS Project Coordinator Nancy Odendaal is currently visiting the member schools of AAPS. The intention of the visits is to ensure that the ‘Revitalising Planning Education in Africa’ project gets maximum buy-in from member schools, and assist their participation, and also to reinforce the network.

The AAPS Editorial Board considered a number of journal articles submitted to it, and voted the following three in ranked order to submit to the International Editorial Board of Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning, volume 4. We congratulate those who were successful.

Papers from each of the member schools that participated in the AAPS workshop held in 2008 are now available in the ‘Downloads’ section.

AAPS welcomes Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, in Nigeria to the network. This brings the total number of planning schools to 29. We hope to increase this number in future. See the members page for details on this school.

This Association has functioned since 2000 as an electronic network of urban and regional planning schools in Anglo-phone Africa. In 2001 it became the 9th planning school association in the world, and became a member of the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN). It has now grown to 26 member universities, but has never been able to meet due to the constraints of travel costs.