Who We Are
Urban and Regional Development Institute (URDI) is an independent not-for-profit organization aimed at promoting sustainable urban and regional development in Indonesia. The institute maintains a relatively small core organization while at the same time continuously developing expansive networking organization. The institute has worked with wide range of partners from local government to national government, private sectors and various international agencies. The institute consistently works to support local capacity building through training program using innovative approaches.
History
Urban and regional development in Indonesia has long been characterized by widening gaps between well-intentioned policies and poorly implemented actions, between extensive research and unintegrated practice, between what is actually needed and what is actually provided. There has also been considerable divergence of interests among the stakeholders in local development that continuously threatens to put the development on the brakes.
Such a situation has been compounded by the current trends of rapidly increasing urbanization, economic as well as socio-cultural globalization, decentralization of authorities, democratization of governance, widespread privatization and the like. The limited and unevenly allocated natural, social, financial, physical and human resources among localities in Indonesia have made the task of improving the people’s welfare through urban and regional development even more challenging.
It is with such a backdrop that the Yayasan Pengembangan Perkotaan dan Daerah or URDI Foundation set up this independent institution in November 1995. With the aforesaid missions, URDI was founded and is continuously supported by concerned-people from various segments of the urban and regional development community representing the government, private and community sectors. Since its establishment, the institute continuously work on various urban and regional development issues both at policy level and capacity building program.