Looking for teaching material on poverty alleviation

Pierre Fallavier (mailto:fallavie@UNIXG.UBC.CA)
Mon, 8 Jun 1998 09:42:43 +0100 

Message-ID:  <357BA403.70F867E2@unixg.ubc.ca>
Date:         Mon, 8 Jun 1998 09:42:43 +0100
From: Pierre Fallavier <mailto:fallavie@UNIXG.UBC.CA>
Subject:      Looking for teaching material on poverty alleviation
To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU


Apologies for cross-posting


Dear list members


I am a student in international development currently completing an MA
in planning at the University of British Columbia, Canada. I have been
interested in microentreprise development for poverty alleviation, with
a geographical focus on Southeast Asia and Vietnam.


I am now helping out preparing a curriculum for teaching on poverty
alleviation in Vietnam for a capacity building project that will bring
together Canadian  and Vietnamese universities. The purpose of the
project over five years is to improve Vietnamese capacity to research
localized situations of poverty and develop and implement adapted
answers to sustainably improve the situations, counting  as much as
possible on local resources. Due to the multi-disciplinarity of the
skills needed to research and tackle poverty, courses will be delivered
to Vietnamese students in a large array of fields (planning, education,
agricultural/environmental science, health-related fields...) as well as
to village leaders, city planners and leaders of local mass
organizations.


My own background is in entrepreneurship and development in Southeast
Asia and microfinance. I am quite at ease with finding training material
in those fields, but I dearly need help in locating practical resources
that could be taught in other disciplines. Therefore, may I ask you the
following:


With regard to your own field of expertise, would anyone have
suggestions on:


    1. what to teach that can be of direct application in developing
poverty alleviation programs
    2. how to organize a multi-disciplinary research/teaching process
that would be very much 'action-oriented' (I have some very good
material on the reasons of poverty in many different situations in
Vietnam, what I am asked to find is practical tools and directly usable
teaching material that could be, if needed, customized to the local
realities)
    3. any other relevant fact I should know.


I would really appreciate anything, from bibliogaphical references to
anecdotes, to web sites addresses, critics and comments.


If anyone is interested in the findings of this enquiry (and in the
teaching material I am preparing), I would be glad to share my findings.
Please let me know.


Thank you very much in advance for your help


Sincerely


Pierre

--
Pierre Fallavier
MA candidate (planning)
School of Community and Regional Planning
Research Assistant
Centre for Human Settlement
Institute of Asian Research
University of British Columbia, BC, Canada