Houston Community College System/University of Delhi

The partnership between Houston Community College System (HCCS) and the University of Delhi developed a model of cooperative training to provide students, especially women, with marketable skills for health careers. During a 2000 summer workshop involving seven leading higher education representatives from India and 30 faculty, doctors, and administrators from HCCS, the partners designed the curriculum for 12 new vocational courses focusing on family and child welfare, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, and health management—seven more than originally planned. More than 20 hospital administrators and policy makers devised an action plan to implement the new courses at various institutions in India and also created advisory boards for the health sectors and a data bank of 60 health experts. Two workshops, held in 2001 in New Delhi, India, identified key curriculum areas and targeted technical training of health care professionals in India. More than 200 participants from the University of Delhi, leading hospitals, government agencies, voluntary organizations, and other local institutions attended the first workshop. Fifty participants attended the second workshop and addressed technical training needs for health care professionals in India and the ways in which universities could make higher education programs more practical to address those needs. In addition, the partners developed two distance education courses on HIV/AIDS, to be used by Indian partners and hospital professionals.

Award Date: 1999 (completed December 2001)
Award Amount: $99,778
Proposed Cost Share: $86,513
Other Partners: Texas Medical Center; Spantron, Inc.; The East End Chamber of Commerce (United States); Delhi Centre for Women’s Studies; PHD Chamber of Commerce; Centre for Higher Education in Professional Development

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign/Institute of Technology, Bandung

The partnership between the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Institute of Technology, Bandung (ITB) is developing a university-community collaboration model to strengthen local governance. Partners conducted five workshops with 198 participants at the start of the project to identify the most pressing development issues arising from the rapid growth of Jatinangor, an emerging urban area adjacent to Bandung. The three most critical areas identified were employment, access to clean water, and waste management. In the summer of 2001, five participants from Jatinangor attended a Local Government Management Institute workshop at UIUC. Workforce development activities included establishing a skills retooling program for pedicab drivers in Jatinangor and supporting the retention of local workers in the woodworking industry. Forum Jatinangor, a grassroots organization working with the partners, has been a key liaison to local government to ensure that residents of local villages are benefiting under decentralization. Four other stakeholder associations in Jatinangor have participated in partner activities: the Mosque council, a youth association, the Village Parliament, and the newly created Alliance for Four Universities. Partners have developed a fully operationalized community-based planning process for Jatinangor and have addressed many longstanding local issues, including waste cleanup, support of small businesses, removal of pornography from public buildings and areas, stopping illegal removal of forests, and improving irrigation.

Award Date: 1999
Award Amount: $100,000
Proposed Cost Share: $148,194
Other Funds Leveraged: $237,250
Other Partners: Indonesia Partnership for Local Government Initiatives, Emerson Park Development Corporation

Case Western Reserve University/National University of Laos

This partnership seeks to develop Lao capacity to provide postgraduate training in pediatrics and internal medicine. Case Western Reserve University and the National University of Laos (NUL) are developing the first full-time postgraduate medical education program in the history of the country with help from volunteer faculty. The first four Lao-trained pediatricians graduated in 2001. A second class of four pediatricians graduated in March 2002. For a country like Laos, with 2.5 million children and previously only seven fully trained Lao pediatricians, the prospect of graduating this many new pediatricians per year has profound implications for improving children’s health. Of the eight graduates, five have returned to their provincial hospitals and three have joined the Lao pediatric faculty. Concurrently, the university launched a three-year internal medicine residency training program with six residents in training. Partners also established the Lao Ped-iatric Residency training program, and 20 physicians are currently enrolled. The project has hosted 21 volunteer faculty visits from eight institutions. Three of these were long-term commitments of close to a year. Khon Kaen University (KKU) in Thailand has provided clinical training rotations for Lao pediatric residents in specialty fields not currently available in Laos. CWRU and members of this partnership have been awarded a World Bank contract for an eight-month consultancy to help the Bank and the Lao Government develop a five-year plan to restructure medical education in Laos.

Indiana University/Kathmandu University

The partnership between Indiana University (IU) and Kathmandu University (KU) aims to develop a model master’s degree program in the social science dimensions of natural resource management at the recently established Human and Natural Resources Center. The project primarily involves faculty training and curriculum development. Doctoral training in the field of natural resource management for a KU faculty member is continuing in its third year under the partnership, and a KU faculty member completed an intensive eight-week course in fall 2001 on International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) protocols at IU. Other partnership activities include a three-day seminar to train participants in conducting an institutional analysis of common-pool resources offered by IU faculty at KU in April 2002 titled, “Institutional Analysis of Collective Action by Resource Users.” This seminar built on two previous week-long workshops offered at KU on relational database design and on the conduct of field research and data acquisition. Other activities by IU faculty during 2002 included meeting with prospective faculty members and participating in several workshops related to decentralization and natural resource management. Partners have developed a framework for a Master’s program in natural resource management.

Washington University/Tribhuvan University

This partnership between George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University (WU) and Tribhuvan University (TU) trained Nepali law students and Washington University social work students to examine social policy concerns and prepare leaders to protect the rights of marginalized Nepalis, especially women and children. The partners designed a new course, “Social Policy Analysis: Models, Frameworks, and Methods,” which introduces law students to social policy tools critical for sound advocacy. They also launched a web site to give faculty and students access to a comprehensive bibliography of published legal materials and development topics related to Nepal. To facilitate access, the partners established TU Law School’s first computer lab. The partnership also has placed five WU social work students in internships at organizations in Nepal, working in areas such as human rights, the environment, and the empowerment of women. In 2000–01, the partnership sent five more students from WU to Nepal. Although the partners originally envisioned sending only four students to Nepal, they have sent 13 interns from social work and law schools at WU. In the final phase, the partners organized a study tour for four Nepali law students and the dean of TU Law School at Washington University. The Nepali law students shadowed law clinic students, visited drug and family courts, attended domestic violence training, and sat in on law school courses. The partnership also played a large role in the development of TU’s Centre for Human Rights in 2001, the first institute of its kind in Nepal.

University of South Carolina/Mapúa Institute of Technology

The University of South Carolina (USC) and the Mapúa Institute of Technology are partnering with industry, government, and NGOs to provide graduate environmental engineering education and develop community involvement to manage natural resources. The partners revised the undergraduate curriculum in environmental engineering, sciences, and management, designed a Master’s level curriculum, and received approval for a Master’s degree during a visit by Mapúa staff to USC. The partners collaborated to strengthen research by establishing a grants and research office at Mapúa and identifying staff. In January 2001, Mapúa’s Office of Research Coordination held faculty/graduate and undergraduate research competitions to highlight engineering research and development activities, to promote information exchange, and to create a forum for students to share new ideas. In February 2001, the office conducted a seminar-workshop, attended by 29 faculty members, on writing research proposals aimed at enhancing Mapúa’s research capacity. During the next phase, the partners will focus on disseminating the new undergraduate and graduate curriculum and ways to ensure project sustainability.

University of Washington/Silliman University

This partnership seeks to bolster institutional capacity in graduate-level coastal management programs at the University of Washington (UW) and Silliman University (SU). The partners have created an interactive web site to link 40 graduate students, six faculty, and four coastal management prac-titioners at SU and UW’s School of Marine Affairs (SMA) to facilitate term paper exchanges and real-time, online question-and-answer sessions. The partners have linked one course over three years through the Internet with interactive distance learning activities, joint research, and faculty/student exchanges. The partners also have established a joint research project that will produce environmental education materials through supplemental funds from the National Science Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. UW, SU, and the Coastal Resource Management Project also are working on conducting joint research that focuses on coastal environmental issues critical to the Philippines. Future partnership activities include field work by UW students on coastal management and education, and a symposium to be conducted at Silliman University by UW faculty on tourism and coastal management.