Regional and Rural Development Planning

Course Objective:

In order to examine sustainable development issues and design effective policy solutions, it is critical to gain basic skills in population analysis and understand key demographic challenges linked to development. To address these learning needs, this course provides an introduction to demographic analysis, policies and contemporary issues in population and development. Examples will be drawn primarily, but not only, from the South and South-east Asia region.

Learning Outcomes:

Students will become familiar with key demographic concepts and learn methods of population analysis. Students will also gain in-depth knowledge of the key contemporary challenges in the area of population and development. The course will have a strong policy orientation, with students being able to practice and develop practical policy recommendations. The student on completion of this course would be able to:

-          Critically examine key issues in population and development;

-          Analyze population trends and dynamics;

-          Design policies related to population issues.


Course Objectives: 

With increasing need for evidence-based policies, understanding of fundamental statistics has become a requirement for those inspiring to work in the field of international development. This course introduces descriptive and inferential statistics applied to analysis of data from development studies. It will allow students to familiarize themselves with key statistical concepts and acquire practical skills for understanding and conducting quantitative research in areas related to sustainable development.


Learning Outcomes: 

After completing this course, students will be able to:

- Understand basic statistics and their importance for development and sustainability

- Apply relevant statistical analysis techniques for quantitative studies in international development

- Use SPSS for basic statistical analysis

- Have a strong foundation in quantitative analysis, which will allow them to pursue more advanced courses in statistics


Course Objectives:

With increasing need for evidence-based policies, understanding of fundamental statistics has become a requirement for those inspiring to work in the field of international development. This course introduces descriptive and inferential statistics applied to analysis of data from development studies. It will allow students to familiarize themselves with key statistical concepts and acquire practical skills for understanding and conducting quantitative research in areas related to sustainable development.

Learning Outcomes:

After completing this course, students will be able to:

 -          Understand basic statistics and their importance for development and sustainability

-          Apply relevant statistical analysis techniques for quantitative studies in international development

-          Use SPSS for basic statistical analysis

-          Have a strong foundation in quantitative analysis, which will allow them to pursue more advanced courses in statistics


Course Objective:

In order to examine sustainable development issues and design effective policy solutions, it is critical to gain basic skills in population analysis and understand key demographic challenges linked to development. To address these learning needs, this course provides an introduction to demographic analysis, policies and contemporary issues in population and development. Examples will be drawn primarily, but not only, from the South and South-east Asia region.

Learning Outcomes:

Students will become familiar with key demographic concepts and learn methods of population analysis. Students will also gain in-depth knowledge of the key contemporary challenges in the area of population and development. The course will have a strong policy orientation, with students being able to practice and develop practical policy recommendations. The student on completion of this course would be able to:

-          Critically examine key issues in population and development;

-          Analyze population trends and dynamics;

-          Design policies related to population issues.


Course objectives 

This course introduces you to social research methods and research design, in the context of development planning. The course will cover such topics as the choice of research design, application of social theories and design of theories of change, generating research questions and hypotheses. The course will give an overview of both qualitative and quantitative methods. It will also allow students to strengthen skills in data analysis and practice data analysis using statistical software SPSS. The course will be composed of a mix of lectures, discussion sessions, and computer workshops. Active participation is expected and encouraged. 

Course learning outcomes

Students will learn fundamentals of social research methods for development planning and gain a thorough overview of issues related to research design and choice of research methods in development planning. They will also be able to learn and apply some of the data analysis methods using SPSS. Specific learning outcome include:

• What are the main approaches to research design in development planning;

• What are the main qualitative and quantitative research methods in development planning;

• How to do a literature review;

• How to develop a theory of change;

• How to develop and assess a research proposal;

• How to use SPSS for basic quantitative analysis;

• How to communicate research for policy impact.