Action Ireland Trust (AIT) and Portmarnock Community School (PCS) wins 2025 Irish Planning Institute (IPI) Award for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
We are very proud to announce that we were part of the team that secured the 2025 IPI Planning Award for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion. It represents many years of hard work from AIT and the PCS school community and showcases the work that we do and how collaboration can achieve so much.
Action Ireland Trust (AIT) (www.actionirelandtrust.ie) is an Irish based charity that has worked in Lesotho since 2011. Since then, they have implemented a development program in Lesotho in partnership with the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and the Police, Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Health, Ministry for Sport, Culture and Gender Equality and UNICEF.
A key strand of the charity’s programme is the training, mentoring and capacity building of planning staff and the development of the planning profession in Lesotho. The planning stream of AITs activities arises from a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed in 2016 between Fingal County Council (FCC) and the Lesotho Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship. The first project in 2016 was working with Lesotho planners and Portmarnock Community School (PCS) on the ‘Map Lesotho’ project to improve mapping techniques and coverage, as the availability of spatial data was limited. As a result of this initiative, Lesotho is the most mapped country in Africa, with good spatial mapping now available to inform future development plans for country. The planning programme ultimately led to five planners from Lesotho availing of the FCC Scholarship Program for Lesotho Planners at Technical University Dublin (TUD) in a Masters in Spatial Planning. They graduated in various years between 2019 and 2021 and returned to Lesotho to work in their home country.
Another key aspect of the programme is to support and develop the Lesotho Town and Regional Planning Institute (LTRPI) https://www.facebook.com/p/Lesotho-Town-and-Regional-Planning-Institute-100064492699718/ on a range of activities. The Irish Planning Institute first engaged with the LTRPI in 2013 and provided assistance to get the LTRPI up and running. The development of the LTRPI has however been slow and they are seeking peer to peer assistance to develop the institute.
A central element of AITs work also involves bringing a group of up to 40 Transition Year students from PCS and a construction crew to Lesotho every year. In previous years, some of these students were involved in the Map Lesotho Project.
In 2023, Lesotho was number 175 (out of 195) economy in the world in terms of GDP ($2.12B current US$). The AIT planning programme is unique in providing training and mentoring to planning professionals in a developing country to support sustainable development and economic investment. It is an inclusive programme designed to create access to opportunities for planning professionals in Lesotho through training and technical support from professional peers in Ireland. Good planning is imperative in any country to ensure a co-ordinated plan led plan approach to development, to decide where to locate schools, clinics, childcare centres, transport and housing etc; to protect the environment and natural resources and harness opportunities for tourism development and renewable energy.
In March/April 2025, the charity supported 5 senior planning professionals:
- Erika Casey MIPI, Director of Planning An Bord Pleanála;
- Louise McGauran MIPI, Senior Planner Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council;
- Anne Marie O’ Connor MIPI, Deputy Regulator, Office of the Planning Regulator;
- Brendan Allen FIPI, Planning Team Leader, ESB; and
- Harry McLauchlan MRTPI, Planner, ESB.
to travel to Lesotho for a week long capacity building programme with a group of 24 planners from across central and local government in Lesotho.
The programme involved a combination of workshops, meetings with planning officials, site visits and talks from both Lesotho and Irish planners. Three workshops were also held in local schools to educate children regarding the importance of understanding their environment and how planning can help make their capital city (Maseru) a better place to live. The highlight of the week was the LTRPI annual conference where a variety of speakers from both Ireland and Lesotho presented. Teenagers from Portmarnock Community School and Lithabaneng High School in Maseru also gave a presentation of their experience and knowledge of climate change.