The 1st phase of the CASITA project funded under the EU Asia IT&C program ended in March 2004. From the initial group of 14 universities, four universities from Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand have requested assistance for the development of undergraduate and postgraduate level courses on natural risk management during the CASITA phase I final workshop and subsequently. They requested the courses to be supported by a research component in order to ensure sustainability and ability to be innovative to address local priorities. These universities, observed to be most promising have taken steps already to institutionalize disaster management subjects in the course curriculum of ongoing courses, are:

1. Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, India
2. Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia
3. University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka
4. Chiang Mai University, Thailand

Therefore, these universities were approached to obtain more information on the needs and special features to be included in academic programs. The common major hazard type associated with cities in all target countries is hydro-meteorological, but cities in India and Indonesia have considerable threat due to seismic activities also. The urban context, population density, associated social and economic problems differ country to country. A serious difference also can be observed in terms of level of subject knowledge of disaster risk management, land use planning, etc. The level in expertise in application of tools such as GIS/RS is also different from one university to another. The need assessment will focus on subject matter as well as the capacity and infrastructure needs of respective universities.