27 November 2009 Seminar and Alumni Meeting
Seminar and Dinner Meetings
In the weekend of 27-29 November a series of meetings were organized by and for IHS Alumni in India in New-Delhi.
For the occasion of the organisation of the refresher course for alumni in South Asia in 2010 IHS Alumni Association India organised a seminar on Making Pro-poor Public-Private Partnerships Work for Urban Services in India at the India Habitat Centre. Bringing together many experts in this field and presenting the findings on different research perspectives in this field, the seminar blended content, discussion and an informal lunch. The programme for the seminar included a presentation by the chairman of IHS Alumni Association India, Mr. A.K. Jain titled "Urbanisation in India, Poverty and the Status of Urban Services", a presentation by vice chairperson Mr. K.K. Pandey and enlightening presentations by Ms. Jyoti Gujral; Modes and Experiences of PPP in Urban Services and Ms. Banashree Bannerjee; Issues and Challenges of PPP in the context of Poverty Alleviation. Ms. Bannerjee is associate staff member at IHS. Ms. Carley Pennink, IHS lecturer who specializes in PPP projects and coordinates the IHS executive course in 2010 on the same topic addressed the challenge of the presence of IHS in India and how IHS would like to cooperate with IHS alumni to better cater to the demands in India.
After the seminar all IHS alumni India were invited to share dinner and drinks at the India International Centre. The next evening everybody assembled again to exchange with Dutch alumni at at dinner event hosted by the Dutch embassy. On the occasion of a gradschool education fair 10 Dutch universities were present in New-Delhi and all the alumni in India who graduated from a Dutch university were invited.
Sarah Steendam of IHS Alumni Relations Office remarks: "The IHS Alumni Association in India has been very active and a reliable partner for IHS for a decade already. It is encouraging to find that the network, relations and ideals are very committed. It would be wonderful if we could take the functioning of the India Alumni Association as a best practise case and transfer the findings and ideas to other countries where IHS alumni assemble too."
