RAFI holds forum on urban development

CEBU, Philippines - The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) yesterday held the first part of its four-part Urban Development Series during its Understanding Choices forum at the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center on Lopez Jaena St., Cebu City.

Entitled “Urban Development and Governance: Risks and Opportunities-Learning from other Cities,” the activity is designed to facilitate and broaden understanding on the impacts, risks, and opportunities of programs and policies on urban development and governance in other cities. Such programs and facilities have been established to fight the urban sprawl or to stimulate urban dynamics happening in major cities in Asia.

The forum aimed to provide a venue for presenting ideas and issues and educating various stakeholders to better understand and make informed choices. It promotes a public dialogue among various stakeholders to raise awareness and understanding of vital issues and trends shaping communities and countries.

Four international experts and professionals from ForUm-Network, a network of global experts in the field of urban planning and development presented their inputs from their respective cities.

The first presenter, Prak Angkeara, deputy director general of the General Department of Land Management and Urban Planning of Cambodia, talked about urban networking by participatory community land use planning in his country.

Dr. Sekson Yongvanit from Khon Kaen University and Virunpob Supab from the Ministry of Natural Resources in Thailand talked about how Khon Kaen City in Thailand improved itself from green and clean city to low carbon city while Dr. Goh Hong Ching from the Department of Geography in University Malaya in Malaysia talked about the risks being faced now by Kuala Lumpur.

The forum provides the public with the essential information on issues confronting urban planning. It gives reliable and timely information that will aid the business sector in their investment programming, the government in policy formulation, the civil society, and the general public in their personal decisions.

The forum was organized in collaboration with the University of Cologne, Southeast Asian-German Forum for Urban Futures (ForUm-Network), and National Economic and Development Authority-7 (NEDA-7). — (FREEMAN)