On Aug. 6-8, 2024, the hosted the 3rd International Conference on Human Settlements Planning and Development (ICHSPD) in partnership with the Asia Pacific Rim Universities – Sustainable Cities and Landscapes (APRU-SCL). The 7th annual conference of APRU-SCL was simultaneously held during the ICHSPD. During this event, UP President Angelo A. Jimenez was asked to deliver a special message for the conference participants.
With the theme “Advancing Sustainable Cities and Communities through Science, Technology, and Innovation,” the ICHSPD tackled various global issues experienced by many communities and provided a platform for collaboration toward possible solutions. It also highlighted human settlements during the digital age and the creation of security amidst vulnerabilities created by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, all of which are crucial steps forward in achieving the goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities or the 11th UN Sustainable Development Goal.
To our APRU Chief Executive, Dr. Thomas Schneider;
To our APRU Program Manager, Mr. Benjamin Zhou;
To our keynote speaker, Mr. Jeffrey Hou, of the National University of Singapore;
To our fellow speaker Dr. Samad Sepasgozar, of the University of New South Wales Sydney;
To the Chair of the UPLB Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning, Dr. Maria Catriona E. Devanadera;
Our overall conference director, Dr. Edgar Reyes;
Distinguished guests, colleagues, students, and stakeholders,
Maayong buntag sa atong tanan. In my native language, because I am a datu of an indigenous tribe in the Philippines, it means “Good morning.” A pleasant morning to you all, and a warm welcome to the Association of Pacific Rim Universities – Sustainable Cities and Landscape International Conference.
Welcome to the nation that is considered number one in the Global Risk Index. Sixty percent of our settled communities here and 70% of our population are exposed to natural calamities. We would like all of you to consider this your home. Welcome.
It is an immense honor and pleasure to have all of you here for the last three days, coming together from various corners of the world to engage in what promises to be a groundbreaking and transformative event. And we are very excited to be hosting you today. This conference brings together a diverse array of experts, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners as well, each bringing with them their unique perspectives and expertise to the pressing and multifaceted issues surrounding the sustainability of our urban and city landscapes.
In today’s rapidly changing world, the challenges we face in urban and landscape sustainability are more complex and interconnected than ever. Urbanization continues to accelerate, with more than half of the global populations now residing in cities. As of 2021, over 56% of the world’s 7.9 billion people reside in urban areas. This figure is projected to grow even more as the World Bank forecasts a global population reaching ten billion by 2050. Moreover, the United Nations indicates that future population growth will be concentrated in urban areas as rural areas stabilize and decline.
Urban sprawl and human development are deeply intertwined. Urbanization extends its influence beyond city limits, impacting resources, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrological cycles, ecological processes, productive lands, and rural life in general. This rapid growth presents significant challenges, including environmental degradation, resource depletion, and more importantly, social inequality. At the same time, our rural landscapes face their own set of specific challenges, from land-use changes and biodiversity loss due to the impacts of climate change. These issues are not isolated. We know that very well. Urban and landscape sustainability are interconnected, and, thus, require a holistic understanding of their intricacies and interdependencies.
This conference, we hope, serves as a vital platform for us to explore these challenges in depth and to share innovative solutions and strategies that can drive meaningful change. Over the next few days, you have started yesterday, you have been engaged in a rich program of keynote and plenary speeches, panel discussions, workshops, and networking sessions. It is my hope that each session would be able to foster deep, interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary, dialogue to stimulate the exchange of ideas and best practices.
As my own university’s contribution to the discourse, allow me to share with you some of my insights on the crucial role of public universities towards achieving this integrated approach. Public and national universities are vital in fostering sustainable urban landscapes and resilient human environments due to their unique positions as knowledge creators, community partners, and educators. The advantages universities offer to stakeholders are multifaceted.
First, they serve as hubs for interdisciplinary knowledge production that bridges the gap between theory and practice. The ĚěĂŔĘÓƵ, for instance, has established numerous interdisciplinary research centers and institutes that bring together our experts from different disciplines to address urban issues comprehensively. These centers facilitate the exchange of ideas and the development of holistic solutions. For example, the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS)— this is our System-wide think-tank—conducts policy-oriented research on a wide range of topics, including urban development, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Meanwhile, the UP Resilience Institute—and you heard its chief talk this morning—serves as a hub for research, training, and advocacy on disaster risk reduction management or DRRM. The Institute collaborates with local government units (LGUs), among others, to develop and implement disaster preparedness and response plans. The UPRI was the one to develop hazard maps of cities that are most exposed. Of the 1,600 or so local government units of this country, 50% are using the hazard maps produced by UP today.
The research initiatives of our conference host, the UP Los Baños Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning, are also notable for bringing together experts from fields such as environmental science, engineering, and social sciences to address complex urban sustainability challenges. This collaborative approach ensures that solutions are holistic and consider various dimensions of sustainability.
Second, universities serve as convenors of diverse stakeholders, fostering synergistic engagements with government agencies, private sector entities, non-governmental organizations, and most importantly, local communities where the action is. This convening power facilitates the co-production or co-creation of knowledge and the implementation of community-specific solutions to problems. I believe the Sustainable Cities and Landscapes (SCL) Hub was established on this same principle. Since its founding in 2016, the SCL Hub has worked to promote the sustainability of human and earth systems by co-producing knowledge that fosters actionable plans to enhance the supportive relationships between the cities and their local and regional landscapes. The SCL Hub, supported by a consortium led by the University of Oregon, began with six universities in 2016 and expanded to 19 universities by 2021. Now with a network of more than of 61 leading research universities in the Asia-Pacific region, the SCL Hub continues to grow and engage in collaborative exchanges that shape policy and practice in the region. And we are already excited for you to have as many initiatives you want in the Philippines. As many as you want.
Third, universities play a crucial role in educating and training the next generation of leaders and professionals. It’s amazing. Just a few months ago, we offered online a course on the Basics of Resilience. We knew that there was a big market for it, but we didn’t realize how big it was. So many people enrolled in this microcredential course, our online offering, and we were only able to accommodate 10,000 of them for the first edition. Next time, we’ll probably offer it to a million, because as the Khan Academy, said “1 teacher, a million students.” For this reason, here at the university, we continue to expand academic offerings to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to respond to both recurring and emerging urban sustainability challenges. Dr. Mahar Lagmay, who was here with you this morning—his other name is Mr. Disaster. Every time there’s a volcanic eruption, a typhoon, a storm surge, a flood or any kind of calamity, he will appear on TV, on radio, in the newspapers, and he’s with UP. We are positioning the University. We are located in more than 20 campuses all over the country, and we’re trying to establish each one as a disaster preparedness hub. We are a “disaster university”—hopefully, not a disastrous one.
Currently, UP offers a wide array of programs related to urban sustainability, from environmental science and engineering to urban planning and public policy. The UP Open University, our online and virtual arm, offers a Doctor in Sustainability (DSus) program that aims to train professionals capable of creating research-based solutions to enduring sustainability challenges by integrating core theoretical frameworks with practical field knowledge. And this is available globally. Overall, these programs not only impart crucial skills and knowhow but also allow students to engage with national agencies, local governments, nongovernment organizations, community organizations, and various stakeholders. Although this is a doctoral program, we do offer in our Open University free baccalaureate degree programs to anyone who can produce a Philippine passport.
Fourth, universities engage with communities and stakeholders to co-create sustainable solutions. They serve as neutral grounds where diverse groups can come together to discuss and address urban sustainability challenges. Today’s conference, in fact, is a concrete example of how universities facilitate dialogues and partnerships between other universities, government institutions, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. This collaborative approach ensures that sustainability initiatives are inclusive, equitable, and responsive to the actual needs of real, breathing stakeholders.
Fifth, universities influence policy and governance. They provide expert advice and evidence-based recommendations to policymakers, helping shape urban sustainability policies at local, national, and international levels. Faculty members often participate in advisory committees, governmental panels, and international organizations, contributing their expertise to the development of sustainable frameworks and guidelines.
Given the particular nature of the ĚěĂŔĘÓƵ in Philippine history, our professors are always being raided by government for cabinet positions, sub-cabinet positions, and expert positions in many of our research entities, and they are indeed still doing so today. As of this moment, they are begging me for our professors. However—and this I feel so much—being a publicly funded university, we also face very considerable obstacles in promoting an integrated approach to urban sustainability. One major challenge is securing adequate funding for research and outreach efforts. Public institutions, such as UP, often grapple with financial limitations that hinder their ability to conduct comprehensive research and implement large-scale projects. The challenge of maintaining consistent funding for interdisciplinary research and community programs is particularly pronounced in public universities, where additional budget allocations are susceptible to political lobbying and budget cuts.
Another problem that universities face is lack of coordination and fragmentation of efforts. Our own university, with its various campuses spread across the country—we have about 70,000 students all over the country and about roughly 18,000 academic and non-academic personnel—often undertakes sustainability projects independently. While these projects may be well-intentioned and locally relevant, they can sometimes be inconsistent with the broader strategies of local and national governments and even within the UP System itself. This fragmentation can lead to inefficiencies, where efforts are duplicated or offset, diminishing the overall impact of sustainability initiatives. This is especially challenging for us. We have grown big because government has been demanding more and more services of ours as the national university, and we are the only national university in the country today, and for over a hundred years. In fact, in our entire history.
Additionally, sustainability challenges such as climate change, resource depletion, and waste management are complex and interrelated, as I have said earlier—often extending beyond the boundaries of individual institutions. For instance, issues faced by informal settlers on UP campuses, such as inadequate sanitation and environmental degradation, are undoubtedly linked to broader urban and national development challenges.
Indeed, these problems require a comprehensive approach that integrates local actions with national policies and programs. Without this coordination, UP’s efforts may only address symptoms of these issues rather than tackling their root causes within a larger context. And this is a challenge for us.
As I welcome you to this year’s APRU SCL Conference on Sustainable Cities and Landscapes, let me again extend my heartfelt congratulations and gratitude for your enthusiastic engagement and invaluable contributions. I am so impressed by the many topics and your participation in this three-day conference, and I am very encouraged by it. And I have asked APRU and all its projects, to please consider us, I have to repeat the Philippines is your home. You’ll find a laboratory no better than our climate, by our vulnerable situation in the geography of the earth. I trust the insights to be shared by our keynote and plenary speakers would be enlightening, offering fresh perspectives and deepening our understanding of sustainable urban landscapes. I urge everyone to please continue to participate and stay on even longer than the conference, participate in the discussions and workshops so we can enrich our collective knowledge of pressing sustainability issues. Hopefully, we can have a more meaningful exchange of ideas, strategies, and best practices with concrete potential to shape current policy actions.
I would always tell our students and professors tackling climate actions, including sustainability issues: no matter how difficult the challenges are, we are still lucky that we are alive and facing them. And if they are complex, that is the reason we are talking about it. So I would like to end my message today from my favorite philosopher. His name is Dr. Seuss, and he wrote this little book called, “Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?”: “We have to be grateful a whole heaping lot for the places and people we’re lucky we’re not.”
But he was wrong. We are those places. We are those people. And we are the ones to change the world.
Maraming salamat. Magandang umaga po.
