Lootah underscores role of Dubai Award in changing people's life

He made the remarks while receiving members of the award's Technical Advisory Committee which yesterday (Monday) began its meeting for evaluating the 500 submissions that were received for the 7th cycle. The 4-day meeting, which is chaired by Obeid Salim Al Shamsi, Assistant Director General for Administrative Affairs and General Services, and attended by Ms. Wandia Seaforth from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) and 14 international experts, will short-list 50 best practices from which an International Jury will choose the 12 award winners.

Lootah said:

"The Dubai Award has now established as the most prestigious award of its kind for recognising best practices and initiatives that effectively changed the life of people and communities for better. It is a supreme objective that the award, launched by Dubai in cooperation with Habitat in 1995, strived to accomplish."

He noted that more than 4500 best practices are now available at the award's website for communities and organisations worldwide.

He added that the initiatives, presented for this cycle, dealt with various issued related to secure tenure, eradication of poverty, economic development, environmental management, land use management, production and consumption patterns, children and youth, architecture and urban design amongst other issues.

"The initiatives dealt with real-life issues and offered practical and tangible solutions to problems faced by each community as they worked to provide a better living standard for themselves. All the submissions received will be added to the UN-HABITAT Best Practices database to help in the sharing of knowledge and the transfer of best practices to other communities around the world," Mr. Lootah explained.