CAI-Asia Center and CAI-Asia China Project organized the Air Quality Management Training Course in Beijing from 31 October to 2 November 2007 with support from Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Energy Foundation (EF).
Mr. Wang Xin, Director of Division 1 at Foreign Economic Cooperation Office of SEPA (FECO) and Mr. Cornie Huizenga, Executive Director of CAI-Asia Center presented opening remarks at the opening ceremony. Mr. Ren Hongyan, a senior SEPA official and the Director of Urumuqi Environment Protection Bureau (UEPB), delivered remarks, together with Mr. Huizenga, at the closing session of the AQM training course. Participants at the course included total sixteen representatives, four from each of the four cities: Changsha, Guiyang, Lanzhou, and Urumuqi. Two of them came form city Environment Protection Bureau (EPB) with AQM mandate and the other two came from the technical institute(s) providing technical support upon EPB request. The course was delivered by two well established experts on AQM in China: Dr. Fu Lixin, Course Director and professor in Tsinghua University, and Dr. Zhu Tianle, professor in Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics.
This course was designed in responding to the great demand for capacity building for air quality management for the in-service staff at local level in China, which was already identified by SEPA and emphasized by the cities during the workshops held in CAI-Asia China Project in 2005 and 2006. The key feature of the course was to integrate existing air quality management (AQM) tools into a structured framework – Air Quality Management Framework. This course was expected to enhance the integration of major management tools to optimize the effectiveness of these tools. The course was based on well-established courses of Tsinghua University in China, US Environmental Protection Agency online courses, World Bank Distance learning courseware on AQM, and CAI-Asia and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) training modules on AQM.
This training course was designed in 2006 based on substantive consultation with cities and experts who travel among cities with technical advice. The participants, in the evaluation, expressed great appreciation for the course; more than 84% of the participants felt the course material and delivery were of high quality, and that they welcomed more workshops to be organized among the cities of the CAI-Asia China Project and address common interests. The course was organized through presentations, group discussions, and examinations aiming for better application of technical content into practical work.
To bring international experience into China, CAI-Asia China Project plans more training to be designed together with SEPA.
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