News

Over the past few months AAPS Chair Prof Vanessa Watson and Co-Chair Prof Babatunde Agbola have drafted a constitution to guide the structures and functions of the Association. Amongst other things, the document lays out the Association’s mission, purpose and objectives, the relevant roles and responsibilities of office bearers, as well as the processes to be followed in the course of Steering Committee elections.

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.

The following presentations made at the AAPS 2012 all-schools conference are available for download. Unfortunately some presentations cannot be uploaded due to formatting and size constraints.

See photographs of the proceedings and group dinner of the AAPS 2012 conference, held in Nairobi, below.

See photographs from the AAPS 2012 conference’s field trip to Kibera and Huruma settlements in Nairobi below.

Following the conclusion of the third AAPS all-schools meeting, held in Nairobi from 16 to 18 October 2012, the position of chair of the AAPS Steering Committee is now held by Prof Babatunde Agbola (University of Ibadan). Prof Agbola replaces Prof Vanessa Watson (University of Cape Town), who fulfilled this position with great committment and leadership from 2010 to 2012.

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

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The 2012/2013 version of the UN-Habitat State of the World’s Cities Report was recently released at the World Urban Forum in Naples, Italy. The report is subtitled ‘Prosperity of Cities’.

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

We are delighted to announce the 50th member of AAPS: the National University of Lesotho (NUL).

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).

AAPS is delighted to announce another new member: Anambra State University (ANSU) located in Uli, Nigeria.

The Department of Construction Management and Quantity Surveying at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa), in collaboration with the College of Architecture and Planning at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), will host the 2nd International Conference on Infrastructure Development in Africa (ICIDA 2013).

We are delighted to announce that, as a result of AAPS Chair Professor Vanessa Watson’s recent trip to the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN) committee meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, AAPS can welcome another Francophone member. This is the Institut National d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme (INAU) located in Rabat, Morocco.

From the 3rd to 5th October 2012, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Lagos will host its Second International Conference, themed ‘Urban Transitions in a Dynamic World’.

The 2012 edition of the Wealth Report contains some interesting information regarding global economic and wealth trends, in relation to cities. For those interested in African cities, some of the findings might be surprising.