The provision of post-graduate planning education is a new departure for the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies. It has arisen out of the need for the country to provide planning education that is contextual and responsive to the current planning challenges in Zambia and the Southern African Region. Mindful of the strategic goals set in the National Development Plans, the Department seeks to provide a planning education that advocates ethical, sustainable, pro-poor, gender-sensitive, and participatory planning practice. To ensure that the programme reflects the needs of planning in Southern Africa, the Department has engaged with the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS), a voluntary network of higher-education programmes and departments which educate and train city/urban and regional planners. This has led to the identification of five important themes that should underpin planning education in our context.
The five themes critical for African urbanization are:
- planning and informality;
- planning and climate change;
- planning and infrastructure;
- actor collaboration; and urban land markets.
These themes form the core of this curriculum.
Courses in Programme include
- Local Area Planning Project
- Planning Theory and Practice
- Research Methodology
- Planning for Urban Transition
- Urban District Development Project
- Land and Property Development Processes
- Environmental Management and Planning
- Urban Infrastructure
- Planning for Sustainable Regional
- Planning Law and Governance
- Dissertation.