International Development Courses

Urban migration, climate change and natural hazards pose some of the greatest unfolding challenges of the 21^st century. The need for communities to recover from disasters in an increasingly urban and warmer world will provide new opportunities for practitioners to evolve urban disaster recovery strategies. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction highlight these challenges. This mini-course will examine these themes using case studies from recent disasters in Haiti, Chile, Japan, Nepal and the United States.

Social enterprises are businesses that address social problems in order to improve people’s lives, communities, and the environment while striving to become financially sustainable. They increase social impact by often reinvesting surplus rather than maximizing profit to external stockholders. Whether they are for-profit or non-profit, the “mission driven” entities sell products or services to generate revenue that fuels their growth. There is often a creative use of subsidized funds in the early stages that then form the basis for long term sustainability without further philanthropy.