For the past three years members of the Hume Learning Community, City of Hume, Melbourne, Victoria, have been working as a Community of Practice to trial a cost/benefit analysis approach to measure the impact of individual learning city programs. This approach is adapted from the Robin Hood Foundation in New York.

Last week I attended a talk by Sharjah writer, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi,  about the rise of the Gulf Cities. It was held on Tuesday 19 April at New York University Campus, Abu Dhabi.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi talked about the rise of cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and others across the Gulf area establishing themselves as “new city centres of the Arab world” and are now becoming “global powers in terms of diplomacy, energy, finance, culture, education and sport”. A few decades ago these cities were no more than fishing villages.

The Coordination Team of the Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), announce that they are about to publish case studies showcasing examples of twelve cities from around the world which use the learning city approach to achieving a range of economic, social, cultural and sustainable development goals.

PASCAL has worked closely in recent years with a number of organisations concerned with community engaged research, namely research with communities rather than on communities. This strand of the conference will involve a co­operation with the UNESCO Chair for Community­-engaged Research and Social Responsibility based in Victoria (Canada) and New Delhi.

Introduction

Mr Holland, Director, National Workforce Development Agency for the Cayman Islands, and new PASCAL Associate, reflects on the role of the newly formed National Workforce Development Agency (NWDA) for the Cayman Islands.

Role of The National Workforce Development Agency