Both International & National norms require that persons with disabilities are provided with special facilities in order to help them pursue their education on equal terms with persons without disabilities. National Universities in Sri Lanka admit a limited number of students with disabilities (SWDs) from among those who satisfy the minimum requirements for University admission under the category of ‘special intake’. The total such number of students enrolled in national universities is small compared to overall enrolment. While these students are, by the very nature of their disabilities, denied easy access to many of the programmes and facilities offered by the Universities, whatever special measures that have been taken to put them on equal terms with others in carrying out their study programmes at the University are far from adequate. They follow the courses without any special teaching methods or aids and experience many difficulties including nonexistence of wheelchair access to buildings, lack of information and suitable reading material, and appropriate accommodation, absence of special teaching methods, learning strategies and assessment methods. This contributes to low grades in examinations, inability to participate in internships, poor interaction with fellow students and disadvantages in job opportunities. In this context, we believe that promoting and developing access to inclusive education should be given priority in order to treat the SWDs without discrimination and to protect their rights. The aim of this project is the inclusion of SWDs in the higher educational institutes of Sri Lanka by accommodating and adapting suitable environments for them. The project has number of specific objectives of creating community awareness, developing competency of staff of the partner universities in Sri Lanka, establishing conducive learning environment for students with disabilities.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDD) are one of the world’s leading medical and societal challenges, and there are now expected to be 50 million people worldwide suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. Sri Lanka is considered as a multi-ethnic country with one of the fastest ageing populations in South Asia, and the prevalence of NDD is also rapidly increasing. At the same time, there are no universities or any other educational institution that conduct training programmes in such areas. NDD has far-reaching and often underestimated consequences for informal caregivers (family members, friends and neighbours providing unpaid care), in terms of quality of life, health and loss of income. Therefore, creating of trained professionals for treating the elderly with NDD and support the informal caregivers is a great need for the country. A consortium of five European and four Sri Lankan partners that are covering the area of the highest population density will work together to deliver concrete tangible results:-Eight courses that will represent a total of 30 credits (1500 hours) per the Sri Lanka qualifications framework (SLQF) system.-The courses will generate a program that will be accreditated as either a postgraduate certificate, postgraduate diploma and Masters by coursework at the four Sri Lankan universities. - Eight to sixteen continuous professional development training modules are developed. - Twenty Sri Lankan staff will be trained in delivering the courses. The impact after the project has ended is that Sri Lanka will have modernised and increased the capacity to train healthcare students and healthcare professionals about NDD without any need for further support at this level, which makes the project notably sustainable. The fundamental impact, though, will be the enhancement of the provision of care for patients and their families with NDD.

Major changes are needed to develop sustainable agricultural and food systems in Vietnam, Philippines and Sri Lanka as large proportion of these countries agricultural growth has stemmed from expanded or more intensive use of land and other natural resources, and relatively heavy use of fertilizer and other agro-chemicals increasing the risk of residues in food. Agroecology could be an important approach to meet this general objective - sustainable agricultural and food systems, - as it designs, develops, and promotes the transition towards biodiversity and low external input-based, socially sound farming and food systems. Thus, the CDAE project will create a new MSc programme in a specialized academic area and key regulatory/policy issue, namely “Agroecology” that is as much absent from Partner HEI graduate and postgraduate programmes as it is needed, address this absence and the needs of the region and incorporate ecological principles and knowledge into the study of cropping and farming systems so that professionals are well prepared for the future design and management of a sustainable agriculture and organic farming techniques. In addition, the “Agroecology Labs” that will be established in the participating universities will promote sustainable agriculture and will act as foci of research innovation and cooperation in the area. Moreover, the Agroecology Knowledge Hubs will be a powerful tool for the initial and continued training of the students and academics and will be used in combination with the Labs to ensure continued research cooperation among European and Asian HEIs as well as updating the staff’s knowledge and skills.

The overall aim of the UN4DRR project is to modernize the courses related to Disaster Risk Reduction and Management integrating GIS/RS applications as the significant part of the course content. The long-term effect will be to educate future experts for prevention and management of natural and human-induced disasters (e.g. fires) in the Indian Ocean Rim supporting national and EU policies. The project encourages the cooperation with national authorities, public and private sector offering joint DRRM initiatives and access to short courses for use of GIS/RS via online/offline mode. The project also motivates a more proactive cross-region dialogue in DRRM related educational program in the realization of capacity building and internationalization.It is expected that the course programs at IOR HEIs in GIS/RS will improve the competencies of the graduates of the Disaster’s Management Program, especially when they are capable of applying GIS/RS for disaster mitigation. These programs will enable multi-disciplinary skills whereby the graduates are motivated to apply many of their previous competences in coping with the disasters. The RS/GIS technologies are well-suited for integration of most of the students’ previous learned skills.Recently, the application of GIS/RS in disaster management is not only for faculties of sciences and engineering, but can also be applied when dealing with social and humanitarian issues. Therefore, it is considered that the implementation of GIS/RS in disaster mitigation is urgent, especially the disasters are so frequently occurred. GIS/RS is an important tool in disaster mitigation and this science is developing so fast and rapid that it requires frequent upgrading and provide new knowledge to academic staff as well as the students.To cope with the fast-changing technology of RS/GIS with applicative knowledge, skills and attitudes, the updated programes will also offer IORs HEIs the opportunity to increase academic and research output

Every year, moreEvery year, more than one hundred million people suffering from accidents or life-threatening diseases save their life thanks to blood components transfusions obtained from generous donations and the continued evolution of a yet “old” scientific discipline: Transfusion Medicine. Transfusion Medicine (TM) is a globally spread medical science seeking for the universal access of patients to enough and safe blood and blood components. This goal is practically achieved on many countries, with a high degree of quality harmonisation in Europe and North America. Contrarily, it does not happen yet in other parts of the world such as Central and South America and AsiaTo achieve the WHO objectives competency among staff in transfusion medicine needs to be improved to achieve the goal “universal access to safe blood and blood products for transfusion”. Staff should develop their competency in many aspects. Most health professionals in Asia are only trained initially before recruiting to the blood transfusion services and occasionally trained through workshops and in-service training. The consortium wishes to undertake this this capacity building in order to achieve two major goals: i) To Improve competences on professionals working in the field of transfusion medicine in order to make a blood transfusion safer and to save precious human lives and, ii) to improve the harmonization of transfusion medicine practice within Asian countries.The project will integrate knowledge from Asia and Europe in the development of education programs in TM and will provide Asian partners with sophisticated equipment that will facilitate education tasks ant the long-term implementation of the model.The joint common knowledge and the building of flexible and updated facilities make the described objectives achievable and realistic. The consortium does believe that the current situation in Sri Lanka and Asia Pacific concerning the management of haematological health diseases.