Building Inclusive Urban Communities (BInUCom) Embracing social service to poor urban communities in cities of developing and newly industrialized countries into interdisciplinary academic training and identifying options for improvements in energy efficiency, natural resource and climate change risk management, sanitation and gender equality

BInUCom tackles elementary problems associated with rapid urbanization in cities of developing and newly industrialized countries. It renders innovative interdisciplinary capacity building in both social sciences and design disciplines, dealing with issues of water supply and sanitation, energy use, environmental and natural resources in low income residential quarters. Academic capacity building Throughout BInUCom, capacity building is carried out by training of trainers, direct involvement of students at all stage of education (Bc, MSc, PhD) in field work and development activities, and by the creation of catalogues and toolboxes for further use in partners’ courses. Case studies Field work in selected areas in partner countries will include time based spatial, socio-cultural and economic analysis of public housing interventions and their impacts on neighborhoods. The feminisation of poverty as a background to many sorts of day to day challenges will be used as an analytic category for assessment of poverty reduction strategies in relation to housing conditions. Community involvement Closely involving the affected communities in assessment of their needs as well as in discussions of possible interventions leads to the development of new mechanisms for community building in manifold fragmented urban settings in order to tackle elementary problems such as sanitation and provision of energy and natural resources. Thus, approaches and methods ofdirect community involvement become integral part of academic capacity building and training. Practical pilot interventions This demand driven approach will furthermore strongly engage the relevant stakeholders, especially the municipalities of engaged cities. Thus, a practical implementation of pilot interventions in the case study areas by the affected communities will be enabled via academic field work.