Under the patronage of the Minister of Construction, Housing and Public Municipalities Eng. Nazinin Muhamad Wasw
Under the slogan “Conserving the quality of life is one of the fundamentals of proper urban planning.”
The Directorate of Housing, one of the formations of the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Public Municipalities, organized a mini-celebration on the occasion of the Arab Housing Day, under the auspices of the Minister and the supervision of Engineer Haider Fadel Al-Mayali, Director General of the Directorate of Housing, in the presence of the Assistant Director-General, ladies and gentlemen, directors of the departments and a number of employees of the Directorate, in compliance with the directives of the crisis cell.
Since 1988, the United Nations Human Settlements Program (Habitat) has been remembering this day globally, which falls on the first Monday of October.
The program of the celebration, which was held on Monday morning, 4/10/2021 in the Great Hall of the Directorate of Housing, included several segments, which were inaugurated by a verse from the Holy Quran, followed by a speech by Engineer Haider Fadel Al-Mayali, Director General of the Directorate of Housing, in which he spoke about the housing sector as one of the requirements of modern life. Requirements No country in the world has been able to reach a definitive solution to it due to the annual growing population in the world, and housing is a mobile problem that moves with the social and economic development of peoples, not only to meet the community’s needs of housing units, but to meet the changing requirements of living.
And he indicated that in Iraq, the challenges to implementing the housing policy are negatively or positively affected by the extent to which the government provides the funds allocated to the housing sector when approving the annual budget and providing those funds for the investment plan projects, and because the state, with all its powers, has been going through economic conditions in recent years, which led to the negative impact of all sectors, including the housing sector, therefore, the Directorate of Housing was keen, through its technical, legal and administrative cadres, to search for alternatives that would overcome the financial deficit experienced by the state.
He also referred to a series of measures recently taken by the Directorate, including the adoption of the concept of investment in completing the completion of housing projects based on the provisions of Investment Law No. (13) for the year (2006) and the regulations and instructions issued according to it, and studying the issue of transferring ownership of land designated for housing to the Directorate of Housing through preparing an integrated study to develop solutions to this problem in a long-term legal way (preparing a study of a draft law for the Directorate that allows it the right to own property without compensation and with retroactive effect), and short-term legal solutions (preparing a draft cabinet decision that includes amending the provisions of Cabinet Resolution No. (223) for the year) 2019) who instructed the owners to enable this Directorate to implement its housing projects, as we proposed a draft amendment to the aforementioned decision to replace the term “empowerment” with the term “ownership” in addition to activating the provisions of Cabinet Resolution No. (394) for the year 2012).
He concluded his speech by continuing this Directorate’s endeavor to serve the human being as a supreme value by achieving the vision and mission of providing adequate housing for every Iraqi family.
This was followed by a speech by the Executive Director of the Habitat, Ms. Maymoona Muhammad Sharif, through an audio-visual recording, the translation of which was read by Dr. Huda Ahmed Jaafar, Director of Housing Studies and Policies Department at the Directorate of Housing, pointed out that the climate crisis is widely known for being the first tide facing the world today. Our cities and towns are responsible for much of the climate change that has led to floods, droughts and violence. Cities and towns produce about 70% of the main greenhouse gases. Unless urgent action is taken, the greenhouse gases produced by ever-expanding urban centers will continue to raise global air temperatures.
This is why this year’s Habitat Day theme is (Accelerating Urban Actions for a Zero Carbon World).
She also emphasized that Habitat Day (Al Habitat) provides an international opportunity to raise awareness and push for immediate action by holding events, discussions and campaigns. This year, and in pursuit of the Climate Change Summit 2026, we need immediate measures to develop and implement plans for a carbon-neutral world. Recovering from the Corona pandemic 2019 is an opportunity for cities around the world to prepare major measures to be at the top of their agenda, and it is also an opportunity to change how we generate energy, construct our buildings, provide heat, cold and light in our offices and homes, and commute from our homes to work. We need clean and efficient energy sources to replace fossil fuels, we need energy efficient infrastructure to encourage walking and cycling, and we need well-planned and managed compact cities that allow transportation without the use of vehicles, in order to reduce energy consumption used for cooling and heating, in order to harmonize the natural environment and the built environment together in a better harmonious system.
She pointed out that cities are incubators for innovation and new technology, and we must reduce destruction in order to reach better climate solutions. Although climate change will differ from one city to another, we must ensure that the transition towards green benefits everyone, especially the most vulnerable groups, and creates new job opportunities, and that the only way forward is for everyone to work together to ensure that our climate goals are implemented through the real application of the new urban agenda to achieve the goals of sustainable development.
In a later segment, the Directorate of Housing presented four presentations prepared by each of: the Housing Studies and Policies Department / Housing Planning Division, the National Housing Policy Division, the Engineering Approval and Consultation Department, and the Planning and Follow-up Department in cooperation with the Projects and Supervision Department.
The celebration concluded by thanking all attendees for their commitment to implementing the instructions of the crisis cell and achieving social distancing.
No comment yet, add your voice below!