University of the Middle East Project
Institute in Sustainable Development Policies- Spain, June 18 - July 20, 2003

The Institute will take place from June 18 to July 20, 2003. The language of instruction will be English. The faculty of the Institute will be coming from prestigious academic institutions of the United States, Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.

The University of the Middle East Project (UME) is an independent non-profit and non-governmental organization whose objective is to provide higher education opportunities of the highest standard for all the peoples and communities of the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) through intensive 4 to 5-week programs designed for various audiences of professionals, students, researchers, civil society leaders from throughout the MENA region. The Institute in Sustainable Development Policies is one of the many programs the University of the Middle East project is organizing on topics including teacher education, public heath, governance public policy and civil society.

The academic program and curriculum of the Institute in Sustainable Development Policies will be interdisciplinary and will address the economics of sustainable development, and the policies for sustainable development at the local, national, regional and global levels. The Institute will explore some of the most pressing sustainability issues faced in the Middle East and North Africa (water management, transition to clean and renewable energies, industrial ecology, waste management, sustainable agriculture and management of natural resources, sustainable urban planning). The program will be taught by renowned academics from prestigious institutions in the United States, Europe and MENA region. Field work and group projects will constitute an important component of the curriculum and participants' work will be evaluated through individual and collective reports and projects.

Lectures, Seminars and Workshops:

Redefining development: from economic growth to sustainable development - elements of microeconomics and macroeconomics of the environment - how to reorient development to be environmentally sound and socially responsible? Economic and institutional tools for environmental regulation - taxes, subsidies, tax-cuts, and other economic incentives; the management of common pool resources and the issues of property and use rights for local communities; tools for decision making in socio-environmental dilemmas (cost-benefit analysis, cost effectiveness, contingent valuation, problems of incompatible values, decision-making under uncertainty and the necessity of consensus building);

1. Globalization and Sustainability: Concerns for a Global future and the meaning of sustainability; inter-relationships of economic development, employment, worker health & safety, and environment (within a national context); globalization of world trade and implications for those inter-relationships;



2. National Policy and International Regimes: governmental policy for fostering innovation, economic growth, and employment; government intervention to protect the environment, worker health & safety, and consumer product safety; International regimes to protect the environment and worker health & safety; trade regimes and sustainability;



3. Policy choices and Implementation Issues: financing development; resolving the apparent conflicts between development, environment and employment.

• The biodiversity challenge and the sustainable management of ecosystems



• Global Climate Change and its consequences for the MENA region and Mediterranean



• The water crisis in the MENA region



• Future challenges in Agriculture in the MENA region (water scarcity, soil erosion, desertification, GMOs, sustainable alternatives)

This seminar will be offered in common with the UME Institute in Governance, Public Policy and Civil Society. It will explore issues of bad practices of governance (corruption, inefficiency of bureaucracy, etc...) and how they undermine sustainability, the role of civil society and NGOs to give voice to local communities on environment/development concerns, how civil society can influence the design and implementation of environmentally sound policies, the issues of conflicts between diverging vested interests (government, businesses, civil society) and how they can be overcome.

• New technologies for an industrial ecology: reducing and recycling industrial and domestic wastes.



• Energy efficiency and the promotion of clean energies - energy efficient technologies; solar-energy based technologies in MENA

The challenges of urban rapid population growth in the MENA region: water distribution, sanitation, waste management, public transportation; local practices of sustainable urban development (case studies from Spain, Portugal and MENA region)

Research teams of five students from different academic background and from different nationalities will work together on a specific case study. Each case study will illustrate one of the different environmental areas covered in seminars and workshops. Each team will write a research paper by the end of the summer institute analyzing the case study and proposing a sustainable strategy for the case study.

For further information, please contact Dr. Anne-Marie Codur, Institute Director
University of the Middle East Project
66 Church Street, suite C, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
phone: 1 617 876 6361
fax: 1 801 365 4214
email:sd2003@ume.org
website: www.ume.org

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