| De: |
Panna Madziga [ Profil ] |
| Sujet: |
Week 2 Questions
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| Envoyé: |
Jun 23rd, 2008 - 08:42:00 |
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Dear all,
Kindly do find week 2 questions with background information for reference. You can be as broad as you wish.
3. Making Cities Economically Productive and Equitable
Cities are major economic drivers. They provide opportunities to realise dreams as much as they destroy dreams. Increasingly, cities are not fulfilling dreams for many poor and young women and men living in them. Educational and employment opportunities, in both the formal and informal sectors, are few compared to the numbers of poor and young residents in need of these opportunities. Due to poverty, increasing numbers of young women and men have to forego school to work in the urban informal economy.
Harmonious urbanization can only be achieved when there is equity in economic opportunities and equitable distribution of resources, assets, and decision making power. This is especially significant for young women and men as they are a majority of the populations in most of towns and cities of the developing world.
Questions
a) In your town or city, what sectors of the economy (both formal and informal) are young women and men engaged in? What kinds of work are they doing?
b) What do you see as the consequences of urban economic inequality for youth? Are the consequences different for young women compared to young men?
c) What three strategies or initiatives would you recommend to your municipal government to increase the economic options for young women and men in your town or city?
d) What should be the role of young women and men in the abovementioned strategies or initiatives?
4. Harmonizing the Built and Natural Environments
Like any other organic system, cities consume, metabolize and transform energy, water and materials into goods and waste. As cities consume a significant share of the world’s energy they are also responsible for a considerable share of the greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. However, cities are not equal and there is not a direct correlation of population densities to the production of GHGs. Often the metropolises of the South produce less GHG emissions than smaller urban centres of the North. Consumption and lifestyles, types of transportation systems and infrastructure, city form, types of energy sources and consumption from households to industry and commerce, airport volume, etc. all have impacts on GHG emissions.
Other long standing urban environmental issues continue to challenge cities. These include: air pollution, discharge of sewerage and industrial effluent into water bodies, solid and liquid waste management, the growth of urban centers and thus human settlements into wetlands, mangroves, woodlots, forests, mountain and hill slopes and river channels and the accompanying loss of habitats and biodiversity. Parallel with this is the inequitable distribution of wealth and the poor quality of the living and working environments of poor women and men, young and old.
Questions
a) What are the major urban environmental issues in your town or city? Do you see a differential impact of these issues on women and men?
b) Are young women and men in your town or city engaged in urban environmental issues? Please elaborate how. If not, why do you think they are not engaged?
c) As a young woman or young man, what do you think are the three major urban environmental issues that could enable harmonious urbanization?
d) What do you see as the role of young women and men in bringing this about environmental change?
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