Sustainability and Development Policy

2022/2023

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

4

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism

Course type:

Compulsory course

When:

4 year, 3, 4 module

Instructor

Ermolin, Ilya

Course Syllabus

Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) following the publication of «Limits to Growth» (1972) and the Brundtland Report (1987). The aims declared were to reduce poverty and hunger, achieve gender equality, respond to urgent climate changes, support efforts to follow for responsible production and consumption. SDGs are quite ambitious and demand on persons who seek to develop insights into sustainability and development issues to acquire suitable interdisciplinary skills. During the course we will pay particular attention to the following topics: the history of development studies, the fundamentals of development perspective, the Urban informal economy and rural development, poverty and the poor, inequality with special focus on Gini index, Lorentz curve and Keyfitz entropy, climate changes, ESG practice, disadvantaged neighborhoods in townships, urban environment and urban ecology, urban political ecology.

Learning Objectives

• • To enlighten students by providing the conceptual frameworks of Sustainable Development
• • To look through the theories of sustainability and understand how they can be applied to the post-2015 development policy agenda
• • To understand the different dimensions of sustainable development, including environmental, economic, and social ones based on examples from various regions of the world and cultural settings
• • To explore the various critiques of sustainable development issues prominent across social science to understand the complexity of present-day development policy

Expected Learning Outcomes

• The students will acquire the necessary methodological skills needed to measure the development that will allow them to assess socio-economic and political situations in the country under consideration
• The students will be able to write the analytical documents of their choice in several areas of study
• The students will learn about key theories of sustainability and different dimensions of sustainable development in development studies and various critiques of sustainable development issues

Course Contents

• Topic 1: Sustainability and Development: Introduction.
• Topic 2: Social, economic, and environmental policy dimensions in Sustainable Development.
• Topic 3: Instruments and strategies in Development Policy.
• Topic 4: Practice of Sustainable Development Policy.

Assessment Elements

• Classes attendance and work
• Analytical research paper
• Hometask assignments
  • Each student will be given a specific exercise and then he will be asked to calculate and interpret it based on the literature provided. It will be graded according to the weight of 0,28. The second exercise will be asked to do voluntary if the student wants to earn more scores. It will be graded according to 10 highest grade which is equal to 1 added to the final grade.

Interim Assessment

• 2022/2023 4th module
  0.28 * Classes attendance and work + 0.28 * Hometask assignments + 0.44 * Analytical research paper

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Handbook on development policy and management ed. by Colin Kirkpatrick . (2002).
• John Blewitt. (2018). Understanding Sustainable Development: Vol. Third edition. Routledge.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Dietz, S., & Neumayer, E. (2007). Weak and strong sustainability in the SEEA: concepts and measurement. LSE Research Online Documents on Economics.