Collaborations

Another joint AAPS-SDI studio is currently underway in Dar es Salaam, where students from Ardhi University are working with the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI), local community members and federation leaders on two informal settlement upgrading projects. The targeted settlements are Maganga and Kombo.

From 20 to 21 March 2013, the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS) took part in the inaugural meeting of the African Urban Research Initiative (AURI), held at the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In concert with the initiation of a new Masters in Spatial Planning programme in 2013, the University of Zambia (UNZA) has submitted a proposal to Comic Relief for a community-led slum upgrading programme based in Lusaka.

From 5 to 7 February 2013, a group of AAPS members took part in a workshop meeting on collaborative studio teaching projects in Cape Town, South Africa. The workshop focused on the opportunities, challenges and practicalities of organising planning studios in partnership with local informal communities and NGOs such as Shack/Slum Dwellers International (with whom AAPS has a Memorandum of Understanding).

The December 2012 issue of Alliance Magazine features an article by Sheela Patel, Chair of the international advocacy network Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI).

AAPS Project Coordinator Dr Nancy Odendaal travelled to Durban (South Africa) recently to give input to a Women in Informal Employent: Gloablizing and Organizing (WIEGO) workshop on occupational health and safety and informal work.

Since 2011, AAPS has held a Memorandum of Understanding with the international advocacy network, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

Read the SDI blog reporting on the recently concluded AAPS-SDI collaborative studio projects conducted in Blantyre and Mzuzu, Malawi (reposted from HERE).

As part of AAPS’s strategy to promote planning law reform in Africa, over the past week a gathering of urban planning and legal experts have taken part in a workshop at the Rockefeller Foundation Centre in Bellagio.

On 11th July 2012, the University of Nairobi’s School of the Built Environment, in collaboration with its partners, organized a regional conference to explore approaches and share lessons on sustainable up-scaling of informal settlements upgrading in East Africa.

As part of the AAPS effort to help establish a Master of Spatial Planning curriculum at the University of Zambia (UNZA) (click HERE to read more), the Association offered a bursary to Gilbert Siame, UNZA Staff Development Fellow, to undertake the two-year Masters in City and Regional Planning programme at the University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Text and Pictures by Peter Kasaija (Makerere University)

In partnership with SDI and AAPS, the departments of Geography, Geoinformatics and Climatic Sciences (CAES), and Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning (CEDAT) of Makerere University undertook a reality studio involving final year urban and regional planning students (as well as an architecture student) among local informal settlement communities in Uganda.

Cities Alliance recently published a short online article introducing the AAPS toolkit for case study research and teaching.

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) and AAPS are delighted to announce that the two networks have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which commits them to collaboration on promoting initiatives, plans and policies which encourage pro-poor and inclusive cities and towns in Africa.

From the 3 to 5 May 2011 a congregation of 14 African academics and UN-Habitat staff deliberated on cities and climate change in the context of planning education in Africa.

From 28 to 30 March 2011, the African Centre for Cities (ACC) hosted delegates from Indian, Kenyan, Brazilian and South African higher education institutions to discuss the potential for comparative case research between the four countries.

From 28 to 30 March 2011, the African Centre for Cities (ACC) hosted delegates from Indian, Kenyan, Brazilian and South African higher education institutions to discuss the potential for comparative case research between the four countries.

In 2010, the Centre for Property Studies (CPS) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) launched the first of a three year program under the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) International Youth Internship Program (IYIP) in Malawi.

Cities Alliance is a global coalition of cities and their development partners committed to scaling up successful approaches to poverty reduction.