Seen during the agreement signing are from left: Mrs. Monowara Hussain, Prof. Chongrak Polprasert, Dean SERD; Prof. Mario T. Tabucanon, Provost; Dr. Soeren Lund, Associate Professor, Department of Environment, Technology and Social Studies, Roskilde, Denmark; and Dr. Gopal Thapa.
Danish USEPAM Consortium and the Asian Institute of Technology signs agreement
In collaboration with the Danish University Consortium, AIT signed an agreement on March 13, 2003 to carry out various activities of regional coordination, technical advice, and staff upgrading within the Programme called 'University Support to Environmental Planning and Management (USEPAM) in Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam' during 2002-2006
The development objective of the Programme is to reach a 'strengthened capacity of selected Universities to support sustainable environmental planning and management in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam'.
Background
The regional capacity building project on 'University Support to Environmental Planning and Management (USEPAM) in Lao PDR, Vietnam and Cambodia' was approved by Danida in September 2002. The project is to be implemented by the University of Roskilde and the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with Asian Institute of Technology and other regional universities. The three Danish partners (Institute of Geography, Copenhagen University (IGUC); Department of International Development Studies and Geography, Roskilde University (IDS); and the Department of Environment, Technology and Social Studies (TekSam), Roskilde University) have established the Danish USEPAM Consortium in the view of implementing the project. On 15 November 2002, The Danish USEPAM Consortium and Danida entered into a contractual agreement to implement the USEPAM project.
The Project document provides for a strategy of implementation, in which the School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) would play and important roll in staff-upgrading, technical assistance to curriculum and course development, regional coordination and networking activities. In addition, AIT would provide the lead technical assistance to support and facilitate project activities in Cambodia.