Capacity Building for Rural Development in Occupied Palestinian Territory

The main aim of the project is to develop a strategic plan for enhancing rural development and planning studies in the Palestinian higher education system through development of partnerships with enterprises, on the basis of local and international practices and experience. Through the proposed APPEAR application, it is planned to develop an academic training program in rural development and planning between the Architectural Engineering Department at Birzeit University and the Institute of Urbanism at Graz University of Technology as well as establish a spatial planning research cluster which will form the nucleus for spatial planning unit at BZU. The foreseen cooperation aims at enhancing the quality of life of rural communities, acknowledging and respecting a diversity of needs and perspectives through the provision of educational opportunities and interdisciplinary research as well as fostering knowledge transfer between Birzeit University and the local community organizations in OPT and encouraging intercultural exchange between OPT and Austria.The academic training will also be supported by future contributions from other Austrian academic institutions through their experts on natural resources, environmental and spatial planning issues (e.g. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, “BOKU”, and Vienna University of Technology “ TU Wien”).