Full list of Events

Background

The UNCRD Africa Office and Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in partnership with the Civil Service College of Singapore, organized the first phase of a training course on "Urban and Regional Development Planning and Management" in Singapore from 15 to 28 April 2008. The training course was designed and implemented to support African planners and urban managers to learn and draw relevant lessons from Singapore's successful experience in urban and regional development planning and management. Fourteen regional planners and urban managers from seven African countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, and Uganda) attended the training course. The hugely successful training course was well-received by the participants.

Following the successful completion of the first phase of the training course, UNCRD, the Government of Singapore, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will organize the second phase of the training course. The number of participants will be increased to twenty; and they will be drawn from ten African countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Lesotho, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). By focusing on the successful experiences of Singapore, the course aims at assisting African planners to acquire the skills and competence they require to design and implement effective and sustainable regional and urban development policies and strategies.

Objectives

Specifically, the course aims at:

Improving the participants' knowledge and understanding of the broad range of urban issues facing African countries;

Providing opportunities for African planners to learn from the effective urban management experiences of Singapore;

Facilitating exchange of experiences and ideas between African and Asian planners; and

Promoting South-South cooperation by building and strengthening institutional linkages between Africa's and Singapore's training and planning institutes.