CIDE - Interdisciplinary Center for Development Studies

This course is aimed at presenting and discussing with the students some of the topics considered strategic and core to what its known nowadays as development studies. In this way, students appreciate and understand the complex and interdisciplinary nature of said process, the urgent nature of studying and becoming significantly involved in development, taking into account the different dimensions it involves, and the possible role in its discipline and career.

Identifying the location of natural, socioeconomic, and political phenomena is a fundamental factor with an influence on a region’s development process. Those phenomena or processes where location is important is a special type of data that is known as geographic or spatial information. A consideration of where different phenomena are located allows us to answer questions such as: Which regions develop more than others? How are environmental and socioeconomic variables related in the region? How has this relationship evolved over time? Where these phenomena are found can also be both cause and consequence of activities associated with development, and of the equity or inequity of their impacts and benefits. The development of computational tools for the analysis and manipulation of geographic information, in particular geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS) and the information coming from remote sensors, has revolutionized the way the phenomena, resources, and processes present on the earth’s surface are managed and analyzed. These tools and their application to the management and analysis of geographic information for solving specific problems have formed a new discipline called Geomatics. Geomatics allows us to answer five basic questions about a specific region or place according to two topics: In the topic of spatial distribution there are two (2) questions answered: What phenomena or resources are present and Whereare they located in different places. Relative to processes that are resolved the how, when, and why are used because a region is the geographic space where these activities are carried out. Geomatic tools have enormous potential in regional planning processes, development, and the administration and management of a region’s resources. Among other things, these tools contribute to decision-making for resource management, they permit an evaluation and monitoring of the region’s administration and of the impact of development policies. In addition, they permit the simulation and modeling of the impacts of applying different types of regional management. Despite the enormous potential of geomatic tools, it is important to bear in mind their limitations, not only relative to the tools in and of themselves, but also relative to the information available for using them. The general purpose of this course is to give an overall vision of geomatic tools so that each student can learn their basic functions, the advantages and disadvantages of their use, information limitations, and their application potential to the different disciplines of knowledge. Unlike other geomatics courses, this course does not teach a specific packet. Rather, what it seeks is for each student to acquire the basic concepts of spatial analysis that can be used independently of which program is available.

For several decades now it has been evident that human activities have an enormous influence on the functioning of our planet. The development process, the majority of which so far has been sustained by the economic utilization of so-called natural capital to improve the income and quality of life of people, together with population growth and changes in socio-cultural patterns at the world level, has generated enormous pressures on the planet’s resources. According to many researchers, development as currently conceived is not compatible with the planet’s limited resources. When we talk about Global Change it is assumed that it is a process that has only had an impact in the last 40 or 50 years. This is not true, however, since the earth since its formation has been in a process of constant change. The contemporary change process, however, is different in the sense that a single species (ours) is responsible for the majority of the transformation, for the use of resources, and in this sense for the future of all living beings and of the planet itself. A change of this magnitude by a single species has very few parallels in the geological past of the Earth. Although environmental issues and the relationship between society and its surroundings are at the very center of this global change, it also generates significant transformations in the political, economic, social, and institutional arenas. Global change is not something happening "over there" or something over which the regular citizen has no influence. Our daily activities contribute to global change, and what we do or don’t do has repercussions on the functioning of the planet and society. The purpose of this course is to understand how human activities have an influence on the planet, how the development process impacts the planet, and in this way, the student will be able to answer questions such as, "What is climate change?" What causes it? What other aspects of human activity and of the development process have an impact on the planet’s functioning? What future will we have if we continue the way we are going?          

The student who receives advise from his Graduation Project Director must make a final bibliographical review and produce a version in accordance with the provisions set forth in the Master´s Degree Program graduation project regulations.

Graduation Project defense.

The student who receives advise from his Graduate Project director must carry out a final bibliographical review and produce a final version of the Graduation Project.

At the end of World War II, the world order undergoes changes that will definetely determine future decades

The main purpose of the Public Finances is the study of the public sector as a receiver of financial resources and subsequent investor of them, trying to determine the method of State to reach its goals through the management of budgetary expenditure. In general, the possibilities for the study of the State finances is determined by the social interpretation of the State, its functions, and its objectives. This course addresses this topic from an interdisciplinary perspective, because even though Public Finances are an autonomous discipline, they include and use tools that belong to economic science, public administration, law, and political science. The idea of this course is to maintain an equilibrium between the theory and its application to the Colombian case, specifying the different normative conceptions that support the different positions regarding this issue. The main axis of this course is (illegible in the original) the group of public decisions that determine the income and expenditure of the State, and the mutual relation between them (Corona & Díaz, 2000). From this point of view, it is very important the study of the financial institutions that receive financial decisions from the States: Budget and taxation, from the national and territorial point of view and their influence in the behavior of the economy.

Students will be able to: understand development as object of interdisciplinary study, understand conventional interpretations and criticism about development that favor one or another type of regional development management, and implement different conceptual and theoretical categories about development in the analysis of processes and development management.

Students will be able to: identify three major fields of study on the relation between institutions and development in the new era of globalization: theories of democracy, institutional analysis and the theory of social movements and global civil society, understand the importance of the role played by democracy, the state, the market, rules and informal institutions, global governance institutions, and the new emerging social movements against globalization, and identify some of the main challenges of institutions in charge of development in developing countries.

It is sought here that students know and understand the complex relationship between human activities and the natural environment where these activities unfold. This course tries to analyze different forms put forward to address multiple sides of existing relationship between nature and society and therefore the environmental problematic, while offering the students an overall map of the multiple fronts and diverse dimensions pertaining environmental management. No specialization is pretended here on any particular front (for instance pollution, water management, forests, bio-diversity, etc) given that such specialization would require going to in-depth techniques which are not the subject of a post graduate degree in Regional Management of Development. What it is sought here instead, is that this type of professional knows and has the capability to interpret this map of relationships, focus and instruments, enabling the identification of priority fields, methodologies and expert assistance required to manage development.

The proposed approach In this course is to seek students acquiring the training to analyze development as a social and cultural process. The course has three objectives. The first one is that students could be able to identify development and modernization as cultural subjects. Cultural concepts will be discussed on the first instance. Modern culture extension in the planet and its central characteristics will be studied, usually invisible as its believes and stances are considered natural. The second objective of the course is to familiarize students with the set of theory questions coming up from recent developments in social sciences centered in critic thoughts on development and its featured ancestors: civilization and progress. Thus the set of development associate notion genesis will be studied as well as the critics proposed different lines. The third objective is to identify social and cultural implications of the running of the programs projects and development policies for which some central development practices will be focused such as poverty measurement participation social impacts identification the social dynamic of development projects will be studied. To that end the students will develop a case study during tof the semester and based upon concrete aspects the different expressions of cultural dimension of development.

The course on Society and Development offered by the CIDER discusses many subjects selected from various potential options, because the relation between the categories of Society and Development is very wide-ranging. The criteria for the selection of the aforementioned five thematic pillars are based on the professional training objective in Regional Development Management. Therefore, it is important to support the knowledge and analysis of social processes that are relevant for development processes. After this course, students will be able to analyze the main implications, differences and similarities between the features of some of the most important social transformations for development in the last 50 years, in their global, national and regional dimension.

Which are the main planning theories and styles for regional development management?, Which are the basic concepts, references and methodological aspects of planning methods and techniques for the regional development management? From what logic is it possible to contextually design methodological planning strategies for the regional development management? These are the questions that have to do with the theme of this course for appropriating and applying planning elements for regional development management, the response of which are derived from a pedagogy supported in hybrid learning environments in the individual and collective construction a contextualized knowledge. General Objective: Learn the main planning theories, styles, methods and techniques for regional development management and design a methodological strategy for its contextualized application. Specific Objectives: At the end of this course, students will be trained to: Learn some of the most relevant topics of the contemporaneous debate on the technical-instrumental planning rationale for regional development management. Take ownership of the basic concepts, references and methodological moments of planning methods and techniques for regional development management. Design the contextualized application of a methodological planning strategy for regional development management.  

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to orient and propose strategies of administration and government from his/her domain for the regional and local processes of development, towards the improvement of the living standards of the population. To this end, we will work around four units: regional actors of development, where we will endeavor to make the student able to identify and characterize the different types of social actors who intervene and/or are affected by regional and local processes of development, institutional improvements, where the student will be capable of describing the main institutional improvements determined by the regional and local processes in the development of Colombia and Context, in this unit the University strives to provide the students with an understanding on history, the importance of the environment/setting, the particular features of each region as to analyze the relations between social actors as per the opportunities and restrictions of the institutions, and a case study, that will enable the students to make a comprehensive analysis of administration in the development of Colombia.

At the end of this course, the student of the specialization will be capable of conducting an analysis based on the behavior of the finances for the development of the country, by using the concepts and tools learnt in the modules. More in detail, the student will be able to: analyze the learnt lessons regarding the implementation of different strategies of financing for the development of the country, understand the design of the mechanisms and financial strategies used in private and public finances, identify sources of financing for investment initiatives from geographical, subject-matter based variables, and financial entities, and to know the basic concepts required for the creation of strategies for the financial management of policies, plans, programs and investment projects.

The goal is for each student to grasp the basic concepts of methodological analysis for the identification of problems and for the design, implementation, tracking and assessment of development projects and to acquire the judgment to select pertinent methodologies in specific cases. The following thematic thrusts are explored in achieving the objective set above: The project’s cycle and management tools required in each of its moments and the implications (scope, limitations and challenges) of carrying out development through projects.