Dr.Normah...

Environmental protection is a practice to protecting the environment by the individual, organisation and government, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans.

Protection of the environment is needed from various human activities. Waste, pollution, loss of biodiversity, introduction of invasive species, release of genetically modified organisms and toxics are some of the issues relating to environmental protection

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Governance & Sustainability

Governance & Sustainability       

Dr. Rahmat Azam Mustafa who taught us the concept of sustainability and its relationship with governance. An overview of my learning from the lecture is shared here. hope the readers will learn something too from it.

Every country in the world is planning for sustainable development policies for almost every sector including urban development, industrialization, food production, agricultural resources, waste management, building design etc. For successful and effective running of the today world, the governance of sustainable development policies is the limelight of implementation. what is governance and how it links with sustainability is very important to understand.  

Concept of Sustainability

 Sustainability is a theory based on retaining the current resources and life opportunities for furture generation. according to UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) , the sustainability theory should have the four main focuses: 1. Eliminating poverty, 2. Creating jobs and sustaining livelihoods, 3. Protecting and regenerating environment and 4. Promoting advancement of women.

 Three types of sustainability:

• Environmental sustainability (saving the environmental resources for future)
• Socio-political sustainability (ensuring the security of life in friendly living)
• Economic sustainability        ( creating opportunities for employment & investment)

Governance 

is to promoting , supporting and sustaining human development. It applies to especially to the poorest and most marginal people. based on exercising the economic, political and administrative authorities engaging in terms of mechanisms and institutions. with this approach, common citizens participate through expression of their interests, meeting of requirements and intervention of their differences.

A good governance is about ensuring participation, transparency and accountability. it basically comprises of three legs:

›Economic-decision making processes in country's economic activities 

›Political-the process of decision-making to formulate policy

›Administrative-policy implementation

Domains coming under Governance:

the main domains of concern regarding governance are:

• The state (Government or the leadership of country)

• The private sector ( The primary source of development & employment)

• The civil society     ( community of common people, citizens )

Summary:

Sustainable development in any sector is always driven by a country/state that governs well, a private sector that creates job and investment, and the civil society that ensure the participation of common people in social, economic and political activities.

universal design 

what is universal design?

Universal Design is the design and  composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. 

Universal Design involves designing products and spaces so that they can be used by the widest range of people possible. Universal Design evolved from Accessible Design, a design process that addresses the needs of people with disabilities.

Designing any product or environment involves the consideration of many factors including aesthetics, engineering options, environmental issues, safety concerns, and cost. Often the design is created for the "average" user.

Making a product or service accessible to people with disabilities often benefits others. For example, When television displays in airports and restaurants were captioned, they would benefit people who cannot hear the audio because of a noisy environment as well as those who are deaf.

Universal design is vehicle for promoting social equality and justice, environmental sustainability, and human health and well-being. This is as not just design for equal use, but for unencumbered participation in everyday life, and in public life. This is design for democracy.

Universal Design makes things safer, easier and more convenient for everyone. By designing for this human diversity, we can create things that will be easier for all people to use.

Creative City 

A new concept in urban and city planning is being introduced to us by guest lecturer Khoo Suet Leng and it is "Creative City Concept".

Definition of creative city by Charles Landry (2008), the culture of creativity embedded in the way urban stakeholders operate, encourages the use of imagination within public, private and community spheres and also combination of hard and soft infrastructures. 

Coming with basics of creative city, it is the one and its kind of city  which has independent identity, uniqueness and self generating opportunity feature. It has its own identity and it is capable of using the hard infrastructure ( roads, bridges, buildings) and soft infrastructure ( arts, culture, man power) in a creative way. Creative entity is one which can generate on its own and is not dependent for some outsourcing.


This is the what the today worlds slogan: be creative. to make creative city and be creative, we should have creative people, creative space and also creative idea and product.