His Highness Hamdan Bin Rashid honors winners of International Best Practices Award … reports Asian Lite News.
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality on Sunday honored the winners of the 11th Dubai International Best Practices Award for Improving Living Conditions at a ceremony held at the Dubai World Trade Center, which was organized by Dubai Municipality in coordination with the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS-Habitat).
The ten winners from Morocco, Switzerland, Kenya (2 winners), Mexico, Chile, Haiti, India, Philippines and South Africa were honoured in the presence of Maimunah Mohammed Sharif, Executive Director, UNCHS and Dawood AbdulRahman Al Hajiri, Director General of Dubai Municipality.
Al Hajiri stressed the importance of the Award, which has completed more than two decades since its launch in 1995, which was the fruit of a joint collaboration between Dubai Municipality and the UNCHS.
“The UAE Government has established the concepts of achieving decent living conditions and better ways of living for its society and citizens. These efforts would not have been possible without the unlimited support of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The visions and strategies adopted by their Highnesses were the catalyst and motivation to contribute to the advancement of our society by providing the requirements of a decent life, and promote the concept: the citizen first, making the UAE a model to be followed globally,” he said.
Al Hajiri added that the Dubai International Award for Best Practices has passed through various stages of development, in which it sought to create real participation from all societies in the world and adopted the concept of transferring the experiences and expertise of the winning practices to all societies with the aim of benefiting from them and applying them as and when elements of success are available and this would not have happened without the support and guidance received from His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality, which has had the greatest impact on the sustainability of the work and the continuity of the prestigious position reached by the award in international forums and global awards map in this field.
He said that 11th cycle of the award had received 523 nominations from 89 countries and the international jury, which comprised of 14 internationally recognized scholars in different scientific fields, exerted a great effort in sorting out the best practices and studying them and finally selecting the 10 winning practices.
“Dubai Municipality is keen to continuously promote international practices and ensure the geographical expansion of the Award in collaboration with the UNCHS and international organizations and bodies in order to encourage and recognize successful and outstanding achievements and experiences and raise awareness on the importance of the Dubai International Award for Best Practices and publishing them so that all societies benefit from them,” said Al Hajiri.
He noted that the Award has so far attracted more than 5,000 best practices from 115 countries since its launch in 1995. The website of the Award was developed recently to become a global scientific platform and a forum for students and those who are interested in research and studies and practitioners on the subject of the best global practices to learn from and transfer to their country and apply in their communities and settlements.
Al Hajiri pointed out that the 11th cycle of Award attracted participants from all over the world, and the winning practices came from all continents of the world, and this is the goal that this award seeks to achieve as an open window to the world to benefit from all countries, and exchange experiences among themselves.
“As we end the first quarter of the second decade of the 21st century, governments, international community organizations and individuals around the world are making efforts at the local and national levels to improve people’s living conditions,” said Mohammed Mubarak Al Mutaiwei, Assistant Director General for Communications and Community Affairs.
“We must recall the World Habitat Day, which provides an opportunity for the world to learn about the current situation and the problems faced by many human settlements and to explore how to overcome these problems in different parts of the world,” he said.
Al Mutaiwei added that it is the pride of the UAE that sustainable development and protection of global environment remain the permanent policy of the country, which has received great attention from the President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the support of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and the award is fully supported by his vision and strategy to achieve excellence and partnership with the international community and continuous follow up by Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality, who is keen to harness all the means to continue its success in the performance of its mission.