Settlement synergies: development and institutionalization of partipatory regional planning support systems for urban and marine economic development and climate adapation in Kenya, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Rwanda
Given the above description, you have the freedom to narrowly define your research topic. Kindly discuss your ideas with Dr. Luc Boerboom.
I am trying to make teams of students (2-4 ) for a country. For all cases (Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, and Cote d'Ivoire it would be particularly interesting to have student from those countries work in the context of the UN-Habitat projects. Also, experience with earlier students has shown that combining research fieldwork with an internship through the project partners can be a very interesting, as it gives a 3 months field work experience.
The coastal projects may be of interest to water students considering climate change and coastal development (Ghana/Cote dIvoire) or considering coastal pollution and economic development (Kenya). Teaming up with urban students would make an interesting experience.
ITC has been supporting UN-Habitat, the United Nations organization for urban development, since 2011 with the development and implementation of a regional urban planning approach called the Spatial Development Framework methodology. Although cities are considered to compete for attraction of investment, they can also be considered as regional networks of settlements that reinforce each other. A research program called "Settlement Synergies" was initiated in 2019 to develop methods and tools for regional planning and development of systems of settlements and to study the institutionalization of such methods and tools, which are spatial and participatory in nature. One PhD student, Benson Mutuku focusses on development of methods and tools. Another PhD student focusses on studying the institutionalization of these methods and tools into the planning and development practice. You could cooperate with both PhDs.
You can work in the following project contexts:
1) In Kenya you could work on the development of regional planning tools for, or their institutionalization in, newly established economic blocs that aim to coordinate local (county) government development. You could work with the economic bloc of the coast of Kenya, with 6 counties, in the frame of the UN-Habitat/UNEP Go Blue project for the environmentally sustainable economic development of the coastal counties and marine resources.
2) On the coasts of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire you could work on the development of regional planning tools for participatory community (10), local and regional climate adaptation planning of the coast in the frame of a large UN-Habitat project in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, with the Abidjan Convention.
3) In Rwanda you could work on the development or institutionalization of city planning tools that consider towns and cities in the surrounding region.
Objectives
- Develop spatial methods and/or tools for collaborative regional urban planning in different national contexts and addressing different societal problems and opportunities.
- Understand the institutionalization of such methods and tools in the planning and development processes, again given varying national contexts and societal problems and opportunities
Methodology
- For Planning Support System development, adaptations of the Spatial Development Framework methodology (see literature) to context, or other feasible regional planning methodologies, or for institutionalization interpretive research methods.
- Other spatial economic regional planning methodology for thems such as e.g. for industry, infrastructure, nature and development corridors
- In the case of Rwanda you can use a decision room of the Ministry of Infrastructure, similar to and in some aspects better than the one at ITC.
Spaliviero, M., L. Boerboom, M. Gibert, G. Spaliviero & M. Bajaj (2019) The Spatial Development Framework to facilitate urban management in countries with weak planning systems. International Planning Studies, 24, 235-254. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2019.1658571
Mutuku, B., L. Boerboom & A. M. Madureira (2019) The role of Planning Support Systems in national policy transfer and policy translation in secondary cities. International Planning Studies, 24, 293-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2019.1657809
Participatory planning support systems spatially describe (SIS) and prescribe through public or private policy (SPG) the natural or human-made physical environment (TE).
In all projects in the different countries the three elements of spatial information science, spatial planning for governance and technical engineering are at play.