The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), as part of their longstanding partnership, have entered into a new cooperation agreement for capacity building for sustainable development through higher education and training in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam for the Master's and Doctoral degree studies at AIT.

The Sida-AIT cooperation aims to demonstrate that higher education has a role in directly addressing poverty in the region. Higher education programmes for poverty alleviation traditionally recruit promising technocrats from among the elite in select countries and trains them to conduct research in impoverished areas and to adapt rich-world solutions to poor-world problems. This approach brings improvements to poor areas but generally has not resulted in the poor being given opportunities to develop their own improvements or to prepare their communities to face new and unforeseen challenges to their livelihood such as those posed by climate change, natural disasters or economic crises. Because practitioners working in the field within the communities they serve will better understand local problems and stand a better chance of helping those in need, there is hope that identifying and offering outstanding members of rural poor communities access to graduate programmes offered by AIT, which have a high degree of relevance and strategic importance for such self-reliance and preparedness, will significantly contribute to poverty alleviation.

In order to achieve this, the following criteria and requirements apply to the students supported by the programme.

The focus of the scholarship cooperation is on poverty alleviation. Applicants must have work experience in and demonstrate commitment to work on poverty alleviation to be eligible for the support. The applicants need to provide a written account of their background and their intentions after graduation with respect to work in poverty alleviation.

PhD scholarships offered under this programme (tentatively beginning in 2011) are expected to have access to additional research funds through the support by Sida to AIT for research.

Academic program enquiries and request for application forms can be addressed to the Admissions and Scholarships Unit.

Admissions and Scholarships Unit
Asian Institute of Technology
P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang
Pathumthani 12120, THAILAND
Phone: (662) 5245031-33
Fax: (662) 5246326
E-mail: admissions@ait.ac.th

Deadline 1 May 2011

Source: http://www.ait.ac.th/admissions/Current_Scholarships/sida-scholarships