CAP Regional Vice-Presidents

• Richard Gill, Vice-President, Americas Region

  Mr. Gill, a Barbadian, joined the newly operational Barbados Town & Country Development Planning Office in 1959 as a Pupil Assistant and gained insightful experience in interim control legislation, development control and planning surveys. He graduated from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK) in 1967 with a B.A. (Hons) Degree (Land Use Studies) and returned to the TCDPO as a professional Town Planner before venturing into private practice in 1971.

  This led to the preparation of a variety of local development plans (including Oistins and Speightstown); housing and other land use studies; and involvement in traffic and highway and other studies. He has designed many housing and some industrial/commercial projects, sometimes implementing them as project manager, and has been involved in the master planning and residential layout design for several golf resorts in Barbados. He equally enjoys working at a micro-scale. He conducted all planning appeal hearings in Bermuda as the visiting Planning Inspector for 10 years until 1998 and was Chairman of the statutory Planning Advisory Committee in Barbados for some years. His Firm, Richard Gill Associates Ltd, is also involved in the wider Caribbean.

  Mr. Gill is a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute and currently (2007) President of the Barbados Town & Country Planning Society. He and other colleagues have organized local and regional conferences and workshops and have played an active part in CAP over the years.

  His relationship with CAP started in 1970 when he was one of several Commonwealth Planners who met with Prof. Arthur Ling at the RTPI in Portland Place, London, to thrash out the first draft constitution prior to CAP's formation. After all these years, this is the first opportunity to serve on the Executive and he proposes to continue to build linkages which were made by his regional predecessors throughout the Caribbean and in Canada, especially through the proposed Regional Conference in Barbados in June, 2007.

• Bosire Ogero, Vice-President East Africa Region.

  Mr Ogero is a planner trained in Kenya and the Netherlands. He worked in senior capacities in the Kenya Government before joining Matrix Development Consultants in 1990, where he currently works as a senior partner. While at Matrix he has specialised in strategic planning, policy analysis, decentralisation, governance, poverty eradication, deregulation, institutional analysis, local authority management and finance, shelter, as well as programme planning, management and evaluation. In this capacity he has undertaken a wide variety of consultancy assignments in Kenya and the East, Central and Southern Africa region.

  He has taken a keen interest in the development and building the capacity of planning professional bodies in Kenya and the region. He joined colleagues to found the Kenya Institute of Planners (KIP) a professional body that incorporates urban and regional planners in the country. He mobilised his colleagues to organise a high profile launch of KIP in March 2001 through a workshop with the theme- "making Kenya a planning society". He has served as honorary president of KIP from 2001 to 2006.

  He has played a key role in CAP affairs since 2001 when he attended the CAP business meeting in Australia. He has since attended all CAP business meetings and has been a regular contributor of articles to CAP News. He has also represented CAP in several UN Habitat meetings and Com Habitat meetings held in Nairobi.

  He was elected as a regional vice president of CAP in June 2002 and has held the post since then. In this capacity he has played a key role in raising the profile of planning, revitalising professional planning bodies in the region and organised a successful regional event in Nairobi. This event, attended by planners from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzanian as well as representatives of Civil Society Organisations, prepared an action plan that has since provided a road map for professional bodies in the region to engage in pro-poor planning, promote decentralisation polices and increase their relevancy to society. During the meeting the East African Association of Planners was formed.

• Dr Belinda Yuen, Vice-President South East Asia Region

  Dr Yuen is currently President of Singapore Institute of Planners. She is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore and has published numerous papers and books on urban planning. She is the editor/co-author of the following books that explicate Singapore's urban planning: Development Control and Planning Law in Singapore, Planning Singapore: From Plan to Implementation, Urban Quality of Life, Sustainable Cities in the 21st Century, Enhancing Urban Management in East Asia. She is on the Editorial Board of Asia Pacific Planning Review; Cities. She is also Editor, special issue on supertall living, Urban Studies (forthcoming). Belinda actively serves in various civic groups in Singapore including as Planning Appeals Inspector; Feedback Group on Physical Development; Feedback Panel on Income Tax; Subject Group on Parks, Waterbodies and Rustic Coast Identity Plan, Master Plan 2003; Focus Group and Action Programme Working Committee, Singapore Green Plan 2012.

  The South East Asia Region of Commonwealth Association of Planners comprises 2 member countries: Malaysia and Singapore represented by their respective professional planning institutions. In the face of rapid urbanization and globalization, Malaysia and Singapore are actively engaged in planning for sustainable development. For information on planning activities of these two member institutions, see the webpage of Malaysia Institute of Planners (http://www.mip.org.my) and Singapore Institute of Planners (http://www.sip.org.sg).

• Chijioke Odimuko, Vice-President West Africa Region

  Dr Odimukowas the National President of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) 2002-2004. During his tenure, the CAP membership of the NITP was resuscitated. Consequently, at Kuala Lumpur (2004) and Vancouver (2006) he was elected Vice President for the West Africa Region.

  In November 2005, a CAP West Africa Regional Workshop was held at Abuja, Nigeria. That workshop identified the following issues, among others, as relevant to the development of planning in the West Africa Region.

  • Confronting the challenge of Urbanization of poverty in Africa through pro-poor planning

    This involves planning practice that is sensitive to the basic needs of the poor, economic empowerment of the poor, and participation by and partnership with the poor.

  • Eradication and Prevention of Slum Settlements

    More than 70% of African Urban Settlements are slums. We need to find ways of renewing existing settlements and of preventing future growth of slums.

  • Adoption of new Planning Approaches, Tools and Techniques

    Planning approaches, tools and techniques in the West Africa Region are now obsolete and ineffective. We need to move away from the "top-down" mode of planning; the process needs to be more participatory, collaborative, inclusive, flexible and responsive to current ICT developments.

  • Critical Need for Capacity Building

    To achieve the "new planning" in the West Africa Region, we need a new generation of planners, equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills. The curricula of our planning schools need to be reviewed and modernized. Planners, planning institutes and stakeholders need to network more across regions for the acquisition and exchange of knowledge and skills.

  • Building of Regional and Continental Planning Organizations for Effective Partnerships in Development

    Planning communities in Africa presently exist in isolated enclaves separated by international and linguistic boundaries. We need to break these barriers to create a West African Association of Planners (WAAP) and an African Association of Planners (AAP), which will be in stronger positions to partner with regional and continental structures (ECOWAS, NEPAD, AU) to achieve sustainable urbanization and human settlements in Africa.

  • Clive Harridge, Vice President Europe Region

    Clive Harridge is a director with a planning and environmental consultancy called Entec UK Ltd. Clive leads projects for many of the company's major projects including Government departments, local authorities and private companies. His specialist interests are in environmental planning and sustainable development. Clive is based in Leamington Spa and his work takes him all over the UK. Prior to joining Entec, Clive held various planning posts in local government.

    Clive was RTPI President in 2006 - the first to be directly elected through a membership ballot. He used his Presidency to champion three big issues - climate change, environmental justice and sustainable communities. Clive is a longstanding supporter of Planning Aid which provides free planning advice to under privileged individuals and community groups in the UK.

    Clive is actively involved in the international work of the RTPI and he has supported CAP for many years. He led the Institute's contribution to the World Planners Congress and World Urban Forum in Vancouver in 2006, and he helped establish the Global Planners Network. Clive is a member of the Institute's Executive Board and Vice Chair of the International Committee.

    As CAP Vice President Europe, Clive aims to work closely with planners in Cyprus, Malta and the UK to strengthen professional linkages and develop opportunities to share experience with a particular focus on small island planning.

    Clive is married with two daughters aged 7 and 6.

   

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