[sustran] Re: Regional focus for sustran-discuss: Asia or the global South?

[Carlosfelipe Pardo]

Paul and everyone,

The discussions on geographical focus and participation are very useful 
for Sustran. I'll comment briefly on both:

- Regarding participation, I think it's lacking due to a bit of shyness 
from members of the group. I've met with many people when we did various 
training courses in Asia that would have great ideas and examples on 
these topics that would be extremely useful for places such as sustran. 
However, many of these people say they are "silent readers" of sustran. 
I guess what some people feel is that they aren't knowledgeable enough 
to give some input here, but everyone should take part! I invite all 
participants to think about a topic that they've always wondered about 
regarding sustainable transport and post it on sustran to see what other 
people think. It doesn't matter if we've discussed it already or if it's 
obvious, because many people will be reading about it for the first 
time. Also, I think the essence of sustran and these discussion groups 
is that you can be as informal as you want (though respectful), as long 
as you're making a contribution! Go ahead, everyone, tell us what you're 
thinking.

- Regarding geographical focus, I think it's very useful to have 
broadened it to "the Global South". Problems in Asia, Latin America and 
Africa are pretty similar (they differ mostly in degree, but not in 
nature). So I'd say we should keep it global, also because many of us 
have interesting news to give from any of these regions and feel that 
they are relevant for people in other regions. Otherwise, why would we 
promote stuff from Bogotá in Jakarta, and it works? I would even go as 
far as to say that information from "the North" would also be useful 
here, either as contrast or good or bad example.

Actually, one true obstacle between geographical regions is language. 
Asia is relatively "fluent" in English, while Latin America is mostly a 
Spanish-speaking country and many people don't speak or understand 
English. This is why we've also promoted the use of some discussion 
groups in Spanish (predominantly, sustranlac , sutp-lac and 
cities-for-mobility , all in yahoogroups) and they seem to work. Many 
non-English speaking professionals from those regions are most thankful 
for having developed these discussion spaces.

Finally, thanks to Paul for moderating the group and for being part of 
its creation and development.

Best regards,

Carlos.


Paul Barter wrote:
>
> Dear sustran-discussers
>
> There is a suggestion to rethink the geographical focus of this forum, 
> sustran-discuss.
>
> *I want your views on which regional focus would be best for 
> sustran-discuss:*
>
> A. Should we be clearer about our regional focus in order to keep the 
> discussions more focused and consistently “on topic”?
>
> B. If you said yes to A above, then which of the following do you prefer?
>
> 1. Keep things as they are: we say in our blurb that our focus is on 
> developing countries
>
> 2. Revert to the original focus on “Asia” (rich and poor alike)
>
> 3. Other ways to define our regional focus? (I am open to suggestions)
>
> *WHY BOTHER THINKING ABOUT A CHANGE?*
>
> * We started with an Asia focus, which we mostly still have, even 
> though the list description says we focus on the ‘global South’ 
> (developing countries).
>
> So, in practice, 2 probably reflects the discussions here more 
> accurately than 1. So maybe switching to “Asia” would be clearer? 
> High-income Asian cities (Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, HK and 
> Singapore) often come up and they certainly feel relevant enough even 
> if they are not in developing countries.
>
> * In practice, we don’t really get much material here on Africa, Latin 
> America, south-western Asia or Eastern Europe anyway.
>
> * Also in practice, we get a bit TOO much discussion on issues in the 
> West (Europe, North America, Australia/NZ) and we often need to remind 
> everyone that there are various other forums better suited to such 
> material.
>
> Your views?
>
> Paul
>
> Paul A. Barter | Assistant Professor | LKY School of Public Policy 
> National University of Singapore | 469C Bukit Timah Road | Singapore 
> 259772 | Tel: +65-6516 3324 | Fax: +65-6778 1020 | 
> paulbarter at nus.edu.sg <mailto:paulbarter at nus.edu.sg> | 
> http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Paul_Barter.aspx 
> http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/
>
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> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South').