A central motive in all such changes was to equip fellows to play a leadership role in their home countries, ultimately creating a global network of like-minded Fellows who understood the United States and appreciated its e orts to contribute to global Muchdevelopment.hasbeen accomplished over the last 45 years, as the SPURS/Humphrey Program has evolved from a totally unstructured e ort to one with well-de ned organizational priorities and many speci c program components. In the process, many conventional notions about mid-career programs have been con rmed even as we have developed some unconventional insights that I would like to share at this celebratory moment. First, we have learned that SPURS has been quite e ective in creating a learning environment for the Fellows, but that the learning process is more complicated than is the case in many other midcareer programs. We have discovered that good learning environments strengthen student con dence and that building such con dence cannot be taken for granted simply because MIT is a leading educational institution. In fact, MIT’s impressive reputation can be quite intimidating. is is most palpable when the Fellows rst arrive at MIT, but the anxiety is heightened as the Fellows grapple with very high academic standards and expectations. e Fellows do work hard, grow intellectually, and o en perform better when they return home as a result. But the process of learning is unpredictable. As new Fellows grapple to speak and write uently in English, as they try to read 150 or so pages in English every day—competing with the best U.S. students to be noticed in their classes—they have to work very hard to build self-con dence. Add to that the anxiety of being in a new culture, and the transition can be daunting. True, most Fellows are able to transcend are constantly working to nurture the Fellows during their year unconventional wisdom I have gained by directing the SPURS/Humphrey Program over the last eight years is that the Fellows cherish what they learn from each other as much if not more than what they learn from faculty. is sort of group learning is to be expected, because the Fellows struggle through the same process of being accepted in a new environment and reconstructing their lives in a new setting. But does this sort of personal interaction lead the Fellows to engage in the political and moral reasoning we hope the program will cultivate? Do the Fellows engage in “di cult conversations” about the political histories of their nations, or contest varied cultural practices, not all of which can be justi ed in the early 21st century? Or, do the Fellows, instead, remain polite and exchange pleasantries even when then have serious questions about histories of the nations their colleagues come from? In developing mid-career programs, such as SPURS/Humphrey, we o en assume that all forms of learning—from personal to political—go together, with one leading to the next level of complexity, and ultimately to better international understanding. To some extent, the Fellows con rm that their old biases about some countries do give way, gradually, as they get to know Fellows from such countries over the course of the years. Many are very grateful that the program has provided them the opportunity to meet people from all across the globe, which is in itself an accomplishment. However, it is only a rst step toward creating a global community of like-minded Fellows prepared to deal with complex global problems resulting from the equally complex ow of ideas, trade, and people, and the varied political histories of power imbalances, wars, mistrusts, and ethnic con icts of all sorts. How do we take the goodwill our programs create to the next level of discourse? Can we encourage Fellows to question one another, disagree peacefully, re ect on the conventional understanding of the past, and reconstruct a new understanding of what it means to be a true global citizen? is challenge remains.
at MIT. e second
e conference title, “Unconventional Wisdom,” emerged from re ecting upon what learning has occurred in SPURS over the last 45 years—a question we also hope to discuss with conference participants.
Finally, one of the key objectives of SPURS— and many other mid-career programs in top-ranking U.S. universities—was to o er Fellows educational and retooling opportunities. e sentiment underlying this objective was that the United States is an advanced, well-developed nation where Fellows could learn planning skills they could later put into practice at home. At MIT, there was naturally an additional emphasis on technological know-how, which many still consider a major factor in uencing development outcomes. In other words, the Fellows were expected to come to MIT to learn from their U.S. experiences— technologically, economically, and even politically since the Cold War was in full swing when SPURS was created. e conventional wisdom at the time was that the best mid-career Fellows in the world would come to the United States, learn from the United States, and return home. e ow of knowledge was to be one way: from the United States to the developing countries through the Fellows. In reality, the process of learning by the Fellows as well as us, the university faculty, has been multidimensional. ere are many elements to this learning e ort, not all of which I can cover in this brief essay. But, one I must highlight—because it is an insight I gained recently as our Fellows started a wonderful relationship with Roxbury Community College (RCC) thanks to a special grant from the Hubert Humphrey Program that was intended to connect the Fellows to Americans in communities that face signi cant urban planning challenges. e SPURS/Humphrey Fellows who participated in the program lectured at RCC, interacted with RCC students, and built a network of friendship beyond that I’ve seen when the Fellows only focus on MIT activities. Signi cantly, the new program puts the Fellows in the position of teachers, sharing their knowledge with others who are eager to learn about the world but do not have the opportunity to travel. It is the opposite of their experience at MIT, where Fellows participate in a one-way learning process as recipients of knowledge. is experience has made me rethink what it takes to create an optimal learning environment; I suspect giving as well as taking knowledge is vital to developing the con dence necessary for learning. As the SPURS/Humphrey Program at MIT moves forward, we need to continue to build on our past experience and to sort out both conventional as well as unconventional wisdom about learning, because MIT is rst and foremost a learning community.
My late colleague, Lloyd Rodwin, who started SPURS, liked to remind me that SPURS was created as a non-degree one-year program to give mid-career urban planners from developing countries a chance to re ect on their experiences as they planned their professional futures. Rodwin insisted that program requirements should be minimal so that Fellows could freely decide how to spend their year at MIT. e Ford Foundation supported this open-ended approach with generous funding in part because the foundation wanted to encourage intellectual interaction between U.S. academics and planners from developing countries at a time when neither group knew much about the other. ere was no program on international development in any planning school in 1967, and most top-ranking U.S. universities, including MIT, had very few international students, compared to today.
SPURS has evolved over the years, adapting to changing circumstances politically, nancially, as well as intellectually. SPURS joined hands with the Humphrey Program in 1978—at a time of turmoil, both politically and economically—and the program was restructured to follow a new mission. is centered on the idea that mid-career Fellows come to American universities not simply to re ect but to retool, make professional contacts, and learn about the country. By this time, the eld of international development planning had also advanced thanks to rigorous research, justifying the creation of special degree-granting programs in that area. is body of knowledge accumulated over 30 years, was culled from the experience of developing countries but was processed and theorized about in leading U.S. universities through the publication of an increasing number of professional journals, regular eld trips by scholars, and deep empirical research funded by leading U.S. foundations and bilateral and multilateral agencies, including the United Nations and the World WhatBank. emerged from this evolutionary change at SPURS was a set of di erent expectations concerning the Fellows’ role during their year at MIT. More structure was built into the program, including weekly seminars on both international planning and U.S. domestic issues. e Humphrey seminar on leadership was added, in part to facilitate social interactions among the Fellows, which we hoped would lead to mutual learning and intellectual solidarity. Finally, each Fellow was to spend six weeks or so as a professional a liate of an established U.S. institution, learning best practices and developing professional linkages for long-term cooperation between the U.S. organizations and those in which Fellows would work a er their return home.
e SPURS/Humphrey Program, the International Development Group, and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning have been part of the MIT learning community long enough to generate a rich body of experience about teaching, learning, and, yes, giving back. Combined, we are well equipped to create a wonderful environment for nding ways for people to work together to make the world a better place.
3 Contents Notes From e Director BishPage:Sanyal2 American Planning Seminars Series Page: Professional4 Visits Page: 5 SPURS/Humphrey Program/Roxbury Community College Collaboration Page: 6 New Workshops for 2013 Page: 8 Collaboration With Present and Former SPURS/Humphrey Fellows Page: 10 Mobilizing for Adequate Accessible, and A ordable (A) Water and Sanita tion Systems In Mozambique Page: Alumni/ae12NewsPage:14 Newsletter Designed by: Rudy Dieudonne special program for urban and regional studies 77 massacHusetts avenue, room 9-435 cambridge, ma 02139 usa p | 617 2 5 3 5 915 f | 617 2 5 8 038 2 e | spurs-program @ mit.edu web.mit.edu/spurs/www 45th S PU r S anniver S ary c onference such anxieties and move forward, but we in SPURS
Let me emphasize that we are searching for unconventional wisdom, even if some conventional ideas remain valid a er 45 years of SPURS operation.
2 Sharing Unconventional WiSdom: noteS from the SPUrS director Bi S h S anyal , ford international professor, urban studies and planning director, spurs/HumpH rey program
Why are we celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)? e conventional answer is that SPURS is one of the oldest programs in the United States for mid-career professionals from developing nations, with more than 600 outstanding alums in 108 countries around the world. SPURS inspired the creation of the graduate degree program o ered by the International Development Group within MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning—a program that has been consistently ranked No. 1 in the nation for 20 years. SPURS has also worked closely with the Institute for International Education’s Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program for many years, serving the nation by fostering international understanding, cross-cultural learning, and, ultimately, global peace in a world fraught with con ict. ere is much to be proud of. SPURS’s accomplishments deserve a memorable celebration, so we have gone the extra mile by joining hands with the International Development Group to organize a global conference: “Unconventional Wisdom: Learning in International Development” on May 2-3, 2013 at the MIT Faculty Club. e conference will convene approximately 75 high-pro le academics and practitioners, outstanding alumni of SPURS/Humphrey and the International Development Group, as well as, of course, our current Fellows and graduate students, who have helped in so many ways in organizing the conference. We are fortunate to have Dr. Joan Clos, undersecretary general of the United Nations and director of UN-Habitat as a keynote speaker. We are also honored to have Paul Altidor, a SPURS alumnus who is currently Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, as a speaker at the event. Altidor will be joined by a host of outstanding professionals and scholars, including Anibal Gaviria, the mayor of Medellin, Colombia, and many others who are known globally for research and practice in urban planning for developing nations.
To begin such a process of re ection and learning, it’s useful to explore what the expectation was of SPURS at the beginning.
Sept. 17 Introduction to Ameri can Planning Speakers: DUSP Professors Ralph Gakenheimer and Bish Sanyal with Ezra Glenn, special assistant to DUSP department head.
Oct. 1 Urban Revitalization and Redevelopment
Nov. 19 Planning Process, Politics, and Finance of Housing in B oston Speakers: Louise Elving, principal of Vivaconsulting (formerly with e Community Builders) and Noah Maslan, director of real estate for Urban Edge Leaders of nongovernmental organi zations discussed planning, politics, nance, and public-private relation ships within the context of Boston’s housing market. Nov. 26 Communities Reinvent ing emselves Speakers: Jay Ash, city manager for Chelsea, MA, and Lisa Wong, mayor of Fitchburg, MA Municipal o cials discussed plan ning challenges. Dec. 3 Land Use Regulation and Property Rights Speakers: Edith Netter of Edith M. Netter and Associates, and Greg McGregor of McGregor & Associates is seminar provided a legal per spective on development.
Visit to Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC)
Greg Mcgregor, Mcgregor & Associates (top left) with SPURS/Humphrey Fellows
e American Planning Seminar Se ries and the professional site visits that take place during the fall term have become important compo nents of the program. Each seminar introduces SPURS/Humphrey Fel Drawing from their diverse experi ences, speakers discuss the institu tional, social, nancial, and political agendas of urban planning.
Several Fellows revisited the of ces of the MAPC for its annual open house. At this event, all the professionals of the agency were on hand to discuss their chal lenges and accomplishments.
A visit to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), a public agency widely known for its strong leader ship in housing, area development, and city planning was arranged by Andrew Grace, senior planner and urban designer at the BRA. e Fel lows gathered with several BRA professionals, including Senior Plan ner Mary Knasas, Director Peter Meade, and Director of Research Alvaro Lima at a large-scale model of the city to discuss urban growth and previous and ongoing projects. e group exchanged ideas related to low-income housing and services to several ethnic enclaves within Boston’s Downtown Crossing area.
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Visit to Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA)
Fellows also visited the Massachu setts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), thanks to Victor Rivas, a former SPURS Fellow who is now director of capital budget for the MBTA. MBTA General Manager Jonathan Davis and Director of Envi ronmental A airs Andrew Brennan described the condition of services, current projects, and future plans with an assertive message about the agency’s plans, which stimulated a great deal of discussion among the Fellows. MBTA sta also presented new projects, including the extension of the Green Line (light rail) current ly taking place and prospects for ex panded bus rapid transit in the metro politan area. O cials also discussed the di culty of providing adequate maintenance with limited resources as well as a number of other topics. e director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), MIT planning alumnus Mark Drais en, arranged for Fellows to visit the regional o ce responsible for coordi nating planning in the 101 cities and towns of Metropolitan Boston. (Mas sachusetts is governed by these nu merous cities and towns, rather than through a county structure.)
Professional Visits
Speakers: Louise Elving, principal, VIVA ConGeorge Proakis, director of planning for Somerville, MA, and Andrew Grace, senior planner and urban designer with the Boston Re development Authority. e two planners discussed how Bos ton and Somerville plan to invigor ate local communities and promote public-private partnerships.
Sept. 24 Mega Projects in Amer ica: Local, State, and Federal In teraction Speaker: David Lubero , visiting lecturer in sociology at Harvard and senior project advisor to the Boston Area Research Initiative. Discussion centered on the massive in-town project by which Boston cancelled its elevated highway across the city center.
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American Planning Seminars Series lows to the institutional, social, nancial, and political environments of urban planning practice in the United States. At the same time, the Fellows’ visits to professional plan ning and development agencies in Boston provide insight into local o cials’ and practitioners’ experi ence in local public nance, sus tainability, and regional planning. ese two activities help Fellows plan for their professional activities.
Deputy Director Joel Barrera organized and chaired the visit, which featured a discussion with several MAPC plan ners on cross-border collaboration, regional land development, and transportation planning, for which the MAPC has central responsibility.
Informal talks developed into formal presentations of subjects in which the Fellows had expertise, such as urban economics, transportation, geopolitics, and regional planning. A er two semesters of informal gatherings, the SPURS/Humphrey Fellows’ presentations became more formalized and became part of the curriculum of two social science courses: urban economics and po litical science. ese presentations have educational value both for the RCC students and for the Fellows. Steadily, the partnership program blossomed. is year, we built in op portunities for internships at MIT to extend the educational experience of RCC students and to expose them to new elements of the planning disci pline. In preparation for the intern ships, faculty and sta from MIT and RCC presented a seminar to help RCC students begin to bridge the gap between their experience as under graduates and MIT’s graduate-level vocabulary and research methods. is gap may seem huge, but ACPP expressly recognizes that RCC stu dents do not come to the table emptyhanded. ey bring resources to the partnership in the form of experien tial learning, because most RCC stu dents live in communities that have a long history of documented social activism and community develop ment victories. ACPP is dedicated to “two-way learning,” recognizing that while SPURS/Humphrey Fellows share their academic understanding, RCC students bring their own un derstanding and varied perspectives to the partnership, not on a theo retical basis but through experiential learning and practical experience.
“Well, my idea about MIT is now changed a er this semester at Roxbury Community College. e collabora tion of MIT and RCC, although at its starting point, is one that recog nizes that talents can be anywhere in any social class. I do appreciate that MIT has reached out by doing confer ences and o ered us an opportunity to go beyond and hope for the best. e presentations were very informa tive and excellent. I hope more stu dents are aware of that open door.... “ ank you MIT!” Personal relationships are key to this partnership, which is why the MIT/ Special Program for Urban and Re gional Studies (SPURS)/Humphrey Program has turned out to be an ideal partner. Since 1967, SPURS has attracted practitioners from around the globe—Africa, Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Now the Fellows’ international perspectives are ex panding the understanding of RCC students’ place in the wider world, while RCC students are exposing the international Fellows to their varied experiences as students in the United States. Some of these RCC students are international students themselves, hailing from more than 30 countries. ey have also had a wide range of experiences—of immigration, war, natural disasters, refugee status, caste systems, economic and racial segre gation, and oppression. eir expe riences enrich the personal relation ships engendered by this partnership. At rst, we began simply with one or two social gatherings featuring a keynote presentation followed by discussions, which were very lively given the varied experiential lenses that participants brought to the top ics. Eventually and organically, in formal relationships began to form: students and Fellows communicated through email; they met and visited institutions in Roxbury. Subsequent ly, RCC professors invited the Fel lows to present during their classes.
SPURS/Humphrey Program/Roxbury Community College Collaboration
ree years ago, the RCC/MIT Asso ciate Campus Partnership Program (ACPP) emerged from an informal conversation between Dr. Phillip Clay, then chancellor of MIT, and Dr. Terrence Gomes, who was then presi dent of Roxbury Community College (RCC). e idea was to engage MIT resources to expose RCC students to more of the opportunities available to them as they develop through their education.
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A er three years, the pro gram continues to grow and ourish. is note from RCC student and program participant Carl Ev ans Homicil expresses the over arching vision of the partnership:
“When I pass by MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I always say to myself that I would love to attend this school, that it would be a great achievement for me. However, I am always le with the thought that MIT is for people whose parents are rich or that certain people will never attend that school regardless of how much one is motivated, smart, and will ing to study and get A’s. So I always thought there is no point in trying.
ACPP will continue to evolve, as personal relationships reveal new insights. e core program ele ments—social gatherings, SPURS/ Humphrey Fellows’ presentations, planning seminars, internships, and other intellectually challenging op portunities—form the foundation upon which to build upper program matic structures. ese may include collective community development praxis such as: charettes, asset map ping, and exploration of disciplinespeci c skills (research methods; written, oral, and technological com munication; and presentation skills). We also plan to add seminars that ex plore the educational paths to careers in planning, ultimately increasing the pool of planners who hail from com munities living with the challenges that planners so o en confront. By Jose A. Alicea, EdD (MCP ’91), Associate Dean of Academic Af fairs, Roxbury Community College
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Customized content Executive English customized a cur riculum to address learning objec tives for writing and speaking Eng lish e ectively in the context of the Fellows’ projects. Writing included a review of present and past tenses, ar ticles (the, an, a), vocabulary expan sion, conciseness (the average English sentence is 20-25 words; the record sentence submitted by a Fellow was 78 words!), and document graphics. We examined ways to shorten sen tences with punctuation and link ing words, such as “furthermore,” “therefore,” and “although.” By midsemester Fellows were reviewing the essentials of English presentations and short talks. Each participant gave a ve-minute talk on a subject of his or her choosing to the group. Partici pants critiqued each talk, practicing giving constructive feedback—an important communication skill in the American academic and busi ness culture. Participants noticeably improved in all areas, including the most di cult: using articles correctly. ree workshops Executive English o ered three ad ditional events to all Fellows during the fall 2012 semester. At the rst, a welcome/orientation discussion, Fel lows engaged in a relaxed and lively discussion of the six words they had each submitted to describe the aver age American. Examples included “patriotic,” “independent,” and “fatty.” e conversation highlighted Ameri can characteristics as well as the vo cabulary of opposites, synonyms, and word forms. At the end of the morn ing, it was clear to all that the Eng lish program was o to a good start! e second workshop focused on resume writing. Learning the rigid writing style of the English resume is crucial for anyone in an interna tional career. Generating a strong, concise resume takes practice and many revisions. A er the workshop, Fellows received individual support to complete their resumes and bios. e topic of the third workshop was e ective presentations. is twohour event included a talk on the essentials of American presentations along with interactive discussion. A review of the 2012 English train ing program would be incomplete without a word about the extraor dinary spirit and commitment of all the Fellows participating. e Fel lows raised wonderful, probing ques tions throughout the 10 sessions. Bene ting from the small group format, everyone learned a lot and laughed a lot. Attendance remained high throughout the semester.
Kelcy Roth trains and consults with international leaders who speak Eng lish as a second language. In addition to working globally, Roth teaches Eng lish communication to international business students and executives at the MIT Sloan School of Management. is year the SPURS/Humphrey Program launched a new initia tive to strengthen the English lan guage capabilities of its Fellows. Each summer the program requests that all entering SPURS/Humphrey Fellows write an essay noting three important di erences and three im portant similarities between their countries and the United States; they are also asked to list six words that describe the average American. In addition to capturing the Fellows’ rich observations and preconcep tions about the United States, the re sponses demonstrate the level of their English skills. is year’s submissions were fascinating—varied, thought ful, and thought-provoking. Based on these essays and MIT’s English Evaluation, the program selected two groups of nine Fellows to participate in the new English program. ese Fellows came from Armenia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Ko rea, Mongolia, ailand, and Zambia.
As an icebreaker for the 15 SPURS/ Humphrey Fellows, I asked the Fel lows to re-create their ideal child hood places. I wanted them to bond through their childhood memories and rediscover their initial reactions to public space through memory, exploration, and interaction. e ac tivity allowed the Fellows to share their experiences and perceptions in a safe zone. Fellows were free to cre ate any childhood situation and ex perience; I assured them that there were no right or wrong answers. We began the process without dis cussion, maps, or PowerPoint slides because I wanted an untainted re sponse from the participants. is lack of rules allowed them to think quickly and freely about the task. Once they started to see, touch, and explore the materials in front of them, the creative process began. ey chose pieces that they liked, or those that would help them recon struct a memory. Once they began to place and layout a few pieces of mate rial on construction paper, the design process got under way. eir hands moved furiously as their designs and ideas became more developed and elaborate. Many participants got up many times to gather additional ma terials. For the next 10 minutes, the participants were in a meditative state of thinking about childhood. e urry of activity slowed down as people became satis ed with
During the SPURS/Humphrey Fellows’ weekend retreat in Maine, we invited James Rojas, SM ’91, MCP ’91, to con duct a team-building workshop. Rojas is an urban planner who devotes a lot of his time to translating the impen etrable maps and language of land-use planning into activities that are visual, tactile, and playful—the language of how we actually experience the world.
By James Rojas, SM ’91, MCP ’91 . founder of Placeit and Latino Ur ban Forum. Cecilia Paredes, Ofer Lerner and Hanif Gul with created model
English and Communication Training
By Kelcy Roth, Founder and Direc tor of Executive English senses, logic, and imagination had been stimulated, creating powerful memories of these places. is simple activity allows people to understand the power space has in shaping our lives. rough this process we can begin to deeply understand each oth er and to create shared experiences. Even though humans live in various conditions and countries, we all share the same experiences in the built en vironment. ere was very little dif ference in the models among those of di erent genders, income levels, nationalities, or race. Everyone was able share and nd common treads, making it easier to later explore dif ferences. It was a great way for the Fellows to get to know each other!
Team Building
New Workshops for 2013 their models. ey then began to talk, look around at the diora mas created by their colleagues, and pull out cell phones to take pictures of the beautiful models. In a little less than 15 minutes I sensed the group was nished con structing. e fun and informative part of the exercise was next. I asked all the Fellows to give one-minute presentations about their favorite childhood places using their models. e 15 Fellows came from all over the world, yet as children they had very similar experiences. e models were o en of the outdoors, many of such natural settings as beaches, forests, or streams. Urban setting included gar dens, streets, markets, or churches. Many of these places were associated with some activity the Fellows had ex perienced. As children they had used these places for interactions—play ing, exploring, and learning. eir
Abel K. Manangi, Humphrey Fel low from Zambia, traveled to Ghana during MIT’s Independent Activi ties Period, joining Senior Lecturer Susan Murcott, MIT students from Mechanical Engineering and Urban Studies and Planning, and a Loeb Fellow from Harvard University. e group gathered data on water and sanitation issues to gain insight into sanitation conditions and discover why Ghana is lagging in reaching its Millennium Development Goal for sanitation. During the trip, Manangi and the others met with the acting di rector of the Ministry of Local Gov ernment and Rural Sanitation and with representatives of Zoomlion, a private company implementing sani tation activities on behalf of the gov ernment of Ghana. Other meetings and eld trips focused on water strat egies for the Ghana Water Co. Ltd. Manangi's visit was also part of the DUSP Sanitation Practicum in Gha na. Humphrey Fellows Liliana Pi mentel from Brazil attended a peace building through restorative dialogue workshop in Chile and Patricia Silva from Brazil participated with DUSP students in a studio project in Tianjin University, China during IAP.
MIT SIGUS TEAM MEETS WITH US AMBASSADOR TO FIJI
Two Humphrey Fellows from the Class of 2008–2009, Xiaohui Chen and Adam Pinto, are collaborating on a planning project in Togo in volving construction and develop ment on two campuses, the Univer sity of Lome and the University of Kara. ese developments are per ceived as vehicles for prequalifying the university neighborhood area for the project. Beyond the plan ning, construction, and furnishing tasks, the project is designed to: 1) improve the economy and promote the hiring of local labor with an em phasis on youth employment; and 2) strengthen human capital via the use of local skilled workers and the training of new ones (transferring both technology and know-how).
MIT-SIGUS Groups Partners Humphrey Alumnus for a Housing Workshop In Fiji embraced proactive strategy of the global development community, sometimes called “pay as you go.” It o ers a viable approach for meeting a ordable housing demands within the limited resources of government, drawing lessons from the demon strated energy of self-builders and increasingly incorporating these into o cial policy worldwide.)
Abel Manangi Joins MIT Students to Ghana during IAP
In Accra, Ghana, at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, are (from right): Abel K. Manangi (Humphrey Fellow), Anna Gross (DUSP student), Lenason Demidemi (acting director of Local Government and Rural Development, Ghana), Claire Markgraf (DUSP student), Shengkun Yang (MEng student), Lakisha Tawanda David (DUSP student), and Ann Yochin (Loeb Fellow, Harvard University).
Collaboration With Present and Former SPURS/Humphrey Fellows
Le to right: Cindy Crook (US Embassy), Mere Rayawa (Fiji Department of Housing), Kelly Heber (MIT), Christopher Malcolm (MIT), Junghwa Kim (MIT), Ambassador Frankie A. Reed, Phebe Dudek (MIT), Aditya Barve (MIT), Ana Christina Vargas Salas (MIT), Clay Anderson (MIT), and Dr. Reinhard Goethert, director of MIT SIGUS.
e MIT Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement (SIGUS) team joined with MIT Humphrey alumnus Mere Rayawa, principal administra tor in Fiji’s Department of Housing, Ministry of Local Government, Ur ban Development, Housing and En vironment, for a two-week workshop focused on incorporating “incre mental housing” policy into the new National Housing Strategy of Fiji.
e January Independent Activities Period workshop in Fiji undertook extensive family interviews as a way to understand various housing pro grams and to assess their feasibility in an incremental policy reorientation. An innovative “subtractive” approach was used to develop incremental al (“Incrementalternatives. Housing” is the newly
Xiaohui Chen and Adam Pinto Partners on Togo Project
From le to right: Ko Akpagana (second vice president, University of Lome); Adam Pinto (former Humphrey Fellow); Liu Hongmei; Francois Agbeviade Galley (former minister); Xiaohui Chen (former Humphrey Fellow), Kafui Andre; Li Wenguang ; Zhu Haifeng.
On May 17 to May 20, Chen and Pinto organized a working visit in Lome, along with all project part ners. e main outcome of this visit included a protocol signed with the minister of higher education to pre pare the project scope and to assist the government in submitting loans and grant applications to the Chi nese National Development Banks. Following this protocol, the partners will help the Togolese authorities prepare feasibility studies, loan ap plications, and other key documents. Work is now in progress, with a fo cus on identifying nancing op tions, collecting data, and conduct ing feasibility studies. Chen and Pinto continue to collaborate and hope to create opportunities to link American, Chinese, and African academicians and practitioners to gether on campus development.
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Mobilizing Water And Sanitation Systems In Mozambique
For Adequate, Accessible, And Affordable (A)
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ree elds of substantive study center my approach to urban planning prac tice and theory: scal policy, basic needs delivery, and public health. My current book research seeks to deline ate linkages between these spheres through an exploration of SouthSouth cooperative initiatives between Brazil and Mozambique that are be ing realized and a ecting quality of life in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. In that city, I study how urban devel opment processes and city planning mandates interact with internation ally championed reforms, particularly those with Brazilian roots or in u ence (e.g., in scal policy, settlement upgrading, and vocational training programs). I am especially interested in how and why di erent reforms are championed, the process of their adap tation, how they in uence (or not) the scope and design of basic services, and ultimately what in uence or impact such reforms have on the health con ditions of Maputo’s more vulnerable urban and peri-urban communities.
In Mozambique, as in much of SubSaharan Africa (SSA), the environ mental health research community remains focused on signi cant prob lems with the accessibility and/or adequacy of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)—largely in rural areas. However, especially in the re gion’s vulnerable urban settlements, where populations are set to grow most rapidly over the coming dec ades, and where the cost of living is higher on average than in most rural areas, it is also critical to understand the instrumental role played by af fordability in de ning and address ing WASH challenges. In short, a triple lens—namely of accessibility, adequacy, and a ordability (or A3)— better explains how WASH issues are related to and in uence the resiliency of vulnerable populations in urban and peri-urban environments in SSA.
In early September 2010, the sig ni cance of the richer triple-A lens was made all the more evident in Mozambique—a country that while still largely rural, has a growing and strained urban population. Across a number of Mozambique’s cities, riots broke out protesting the rise in living costs due to public subsidy cuts— among them in water and electricity fees as well as bread and oil prices. Maputo su ered the worst casual ties, with 13 people losing their lives as violence between protesters and police escalated. ese events are not only political, economic, or se curity concerns—they also highlight the importance of including a ord ability concerns in comprehensive physical planning for healthy public services in rapidly growing urban en vironments, particularly those where manifest inequalities are deepening. e visitor to Mozambique, passing between Maputo and other cities, would agree that the capital is host to services that would be great luxuries in almost any other part of the coun try. However, this reality is spatially concentrated in the city center, or what is popularly called the “cement city,” belying the diversity of Maputo’s settlements in the expanse of all seven of its municipal districts. KaTembe is the largest district in the capital. It is remarkable for the lack of density in its settlements (with only 119 people per square kilometer, as compared with other districts nearing 20,000 per square kilometer), as well as for its poverty incidence of over 70 per cent, the highest gure in the city. In other words, from a perspective of density and income, KaTembe is a capital city municipal district with a decidedly rural feel. However, KaTembe’s characteris tics are set for serious change over the course of the next decade. e district is the center of an economic development strategy launched by a new company, Maputo-Sul, owned in partnership between the govern ment of Mozambique and a private engineering company from Portugal (Betar Consultants). Development plans for KaTembe center on: a) building a bridge between this dis trict and the “cement city” (which is presently only connected by boat); b) constructing a paved toll road that would expand the major dirt road in KaTembe, connect it with Maputo’s other major road arteries, and pro vide direct access to tourist centers at the southern tip of Mozambique, bordering South Africa; and c) real estate developments in KaTembe (the revenues from which would support repayment of a construction loan from the government of the People’s Republic of China to build the bridge and road Peri-urbanaforementioned).environments like KaTembe, and urban development projects taking shape in them, are not atypical in SSA. Much as urban renewal projects in the United States did, the ux of programmed change in these environments challenge SSA’s urban planners to facilitate the improvement of basic services for the current income-poor residential population while also accompany ing physical plans and services for anticipated resource-rich new popu lations. However, in Mozambique— and speci cally in peri-urban sites like KaTembe—there is an additional planning challenge: missing baseline data. How can planners in Maputo and community groups in KaTembe plan for equitable growth and A3 ser vices if basic socio-economic data on households, their neighborhood ser vices, and speci cally their water and sanitation systems are lacking at re quired scales? e dearth of sub-citylevel data is a serious impediment to sustainable urban planning at the neighborhood level, which is where designs turn into reality. In the latest Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) available on Mozambique (2003), for example, Maputo o en emerges as an outlier compared with other aggregated ur ban and rural areas in the country. While only 0.3 percent of the rural population and 17.3 percent of the urban population interviewed for the DHS in Mozambique had access to clean drinking water in their homes, the gure for Maputo was 39.8 per cent. Likewise, while 63 percent of rural interviewees and 21.6 percent of urban ones reported having no sanitation infrastructure, only 0.5 percent of the surveyed residents in Maputo indicated having no latrines or toilets. While no doubt tremen dously helpful in understanding the general gaps in WASH-related pro visions in Mozambique, such data cannot, as designed, account for im portant intra-urban spatial variations and the speci c WASH-related chal lenges of living in a major city’s vul nerable peri-urban settlements, such as KaTembe. As this district greets new (wealthier) populations, current income-poor KaTembe residents run the risk of paying the combined price of a) higher costs of living, and b) less aid or attention from public agencies (and international donors) for the improvement of water and sanita tion systems, which typically require large public-sector capital invest ments. Such intra-urban inequalities in the face of new development and growth have been well documented, particularly in countries like India, South Africa, and Brazil with signi cant populations living in precarious
Envisioning and implementing im provements and positive neighbor hood change were core objectives in the founding of the planning profes sion and are fundamental aspirations that accompany its global growth.
Withsettlements.thesupport of MISTI Global Seed Funds, I am engaged in a com munity health research project that seeks to address the neighborhoodlevel data gap noted above by em barking on two major endeavors: from a previous land survey of KaTembe (led in part by my collabo rator in Mozambique and my own previous pilot household survey in KaTembe), managing a ordability concerns with water and sanitation systems, neighborhood resources/ services, and local governance; munity groups, along with future international planners from MIT, to lead and facilitate neighborhood and household surveys as well as local monitoring of water and sanitation systems.isproject also challenges the con ventional wisdom of how interna tional research collaborations should be conducted. “Managing” or “ad justing” the expectations of commu nity groups that are part of externally based or internationally funded eld research has become an informal eth ical tenet of sustainable urban and re gional planning (among other disci plines) in low-income countries. Yet “managing” expectations is too o en translated into “mitigating” or even suppressing expectations, particular ly among anxious researchers who do not wish to directly carry the burden of communities’ hopes that so o en accompany projects in low-income settings. is anxiety persists at the personal level, despite the ultimate target of such research being pre cisely the hoped-for improvements in the quality of public services among resource-poor communities.
In short, improving quality of life through physical-social interven tions is the raison d’être of urban and regional planning. And as empirical data has become increasingly central to this core objective in the planning profession and the academy’s work in the Global South (as elsewhere), a re ective turn on data production and activation is due. Rather than allow ing apprehension to govern in- eld relations between planning research ers and the communities and envi ronments they study in the Global South, communities’ expectations of eld-based research need to be not only recognized and embraced, but also Plannersmobilized.largely already agree that data emergent from eld-based sur veys and interviews can be collabora tively produced and used, or in other words, “activated” locally rather than only internationally referenced. En gaging communities in the formal recording of data, primarily about themselves and their environments, strengthens research-based relation ships but also importantly can help foster a community’s expectations of themselves and their leaders. Collab oratively produced and used scien ti c data provides an opportunity for participants, who otherwise remain g a B riella carolini
14 15 subjects rather than active agents in eld-based research, to strategi cally and creatively dare to envision wider scopes of opportunity in their neighborhoods. While such data col lection by lay individuals, conducted at the local level, has centered on self-enumerations and household surveys among poor communities in the Global South, there is further room for this method in the produc tion of sector-speci c and environ mental data too. In the United States, as well as a number of other highincome countries, community water management in urban environments has been popularized and facilitated along with the emergence of environ mental justice movements that bring science to the defense of environ mentally vulnerable publics. How ever, while such movements (e.g., the work of Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement rst in Kenya, and now throughout Sub-Saharan Africa) have found root in the Global South’s rural settings, particularly where natural resource extraction has deteriorated landscapes, urban communities have not yet witnessed a widespread grassroots movement for environmental justice. For these reasons, my project also envisions deepening the typical cy cle of survey work—or what would be su cient for data gathering and dissemination. MIT students will accompany me on my next trip to Maputo, and working in conjunc tion with Mozambican university students and other colleagues based in Maputo, we will provide heuristic training to a locally based youth non governmental organization (NGO) in KaTembe. Together we will expand on previous survey work and support our youth group partners in KaTem be to conduct future household sur veys and to engage in the monitoring of local water systems, independent of this research project. Ultimately, securing accessible, adequate, and af fordable (or A3) water and sanitation systems is necessarily tied to citizen ship—and, in the age of decentralized administration of basic services, to the most local levels of government. As researchers and practitioners, we cannot a ord to shy away from direct engagement with and support of lo cally based groups that can best ad vocate for their citizenship rights to the dignity of viable water and sanita tion systems in healthy cities.
Over the course of two days, the conference will bring high-level practitioners, policymakers, scholars, Fellows, and students together to explore issues at the forefront of planning practice. Plenary sessions, roundtable discussions, and in-depth workshops will o er perspectives from a wide range of political and institutional contexts and will challenge conventional wisdom and advance the eld. A key theme will be knowledge creation and learning from multiple sources; failures as well as successful interventions; unconventional as well as proven approaches; practice as well as scholarly inquiry and analysis.
Paul Altidor (SPURS Fellow 2002-2003 was appointed Haiti’s ambassador to the United States on May 2, 2012. Altidor previously served as vice president of the Clin ton Bush Haiti Fund and has an ex tensive private-sector background. In the a ermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Altidor led a team of professors and researchers from MIT’s Community Innovators Lab to Haiti to provide guidance on housing policy and nancing. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, an SM in ur ban studies and planning from MIT (2004), and pursued graduate studies in law and economics at the Univer sity of Paris in France. (insert photo)
Alumni/ae News
best conditions for investment loans to my country, I need to understand global dynamics and analyze the quality of public programs, while in teracting with people from all around the world. anks to my experience at MIT, I have been able to build these new responsibilities upon the skills I developed through the SPURS-Hum phrey Fellowship Program’s multiple courses and activities, in a very chal lenging and stimulating environ ment. I deeply believe every ambi tious and serious policymaker should undertake a program like this.”
Illac Diaz (Humphrey Fellow 20052006) is one of ve winners of the 2012 Curry Stone Design Prize. Diaz created Liter of Light to provide resi dents of informal settlements in his country, the Philippines, with a cheap daytime lighting source that can be produced and distributed locally. Liter of Light is the rst organization to widely distribute the solar bottle bulbs, and through a combination of social networking, open-source sharing, and hands-on building, the organization has placed tens of thousands of these bulbs—which use empty plastic bottles to refract sun light into homes—in informal settle ments worldwide.
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By Gabriella Carolini, EdD (MCP Assistant Professor for the Depart ment of Urban Studies and Planning
Kristalina Georgieva (SPURS Fel low 1991-1992) is European com missioner for international coop eration, humanitarian aid and crisis response. Previously, she was vice president and corporate secretary of the World Bank Group. Georgieva acted as the interlocutor between the World Bank’s senior management, its Board of Directors, and the 186 countries that are shareholders of the World Bank Group. Christian Asinelli (Humphrey Fel low 2010-2011) has been appointed under secretary of evaluation for ex ternally funded programs in Argen tina. He wrote: “It’s been more than a year since my last days at the SPURS Program, and I can now appreciate what it really meant for my training as a policymaker. As undersecretary of evaluation for externally funded programs, in charge of negotiating with international organizations the Paul Altidor with United States President Barack Obama
Monica Amorim (SPURS Fellow 1991-1992) is deputy-secretary gen eral for the World Famous Mountains Association (WFMA), an organiza tion that encourages communities to engage in green economy, create inclusive development strategies, and promote local culture and products. She is also working on a Sister Cit ies Initiative, linking Brazilian cities to partners in China. As a result, a number of cooperative activities have emerged between universities of both countries (e.g., student exchanges, joint research projects). e e ort has also sparked bilateral govern ment agreements and mutual busi ness promotion.
SPURS celebrates its 45th anniversary this spring with Unconventional Wisdom: Learning in International Develop ment Practice, a two-day conference held in collaboration with MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning’s (DUSP’s ) International Development Group on May 2–3, 2013, at the MIT Faculty Club.
Dr. Joan Clos i Matheu, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the UN Human Set tlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), will serve as the keynote speaker on the rst day of the conference. Panels and presentations will also feature distinguished guests and alumni from the Inter-American Development Bank, the Lin coln Institute of Land Policy, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank, as well as regional and national governments, civil society organizations, and universities around the world.
Angela Franco Calderon (Hum phrey Fellow 20112012), inspired by Illac Diaz’s Liter of Light project, has started a similar initiative. e pro ject goal is to light 1,000 low-income homes people in Cali, Colombia.
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