His Excellency Dr. Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, the Minister of Environment and Water, headed the UAE delegation at the 16th meeting of Their Highnesses and Excellences, the ministers responsible for municipal affairs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, October 9th, 2012.

Issues discussed in the meeting were what has been achieved in the field of environment and urban development utilities in the GCC States, and a review of the experiences of Member States in the field of municipal databases.

   The conferees approved the pilot directory for Municipal Solid Waste Management in the GCC countries, in addition to the standards for developing utilities on the highways linking the Arab Gulf states, as well as developing a municipal databases project. The General Secretariat had been assigned the project, represented in municipal and housing management department, which shall conduct meetings with the specialized team for municipal databases preparations, to complete the various stages of conducted works, coordination and follow-up with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to host the site, and to present the necessary reports in this regard to the senior municipal officials in the Member States.

   Also, a Saudi Building Code was adopted as an indicative uniform code for all GCC countries municipalities, while technical committees that have been formed will work on updating the code thoroughly, and the General Secretariat was mandated, represented in municipal and housing management department, to participate in all the work of these committees, and reporting the necessary progress in this regard to senior municipal officials .

   There was also a follow up on the implementation of joint workshop with the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and the mandate of the ad hoc group on urban planning in the implementation of the general framework of the Urban Strategy according to schedule.

   The conferees approved the Qatari proposal on city beautification, it also recommended that the General Secretariat will be commissioned to implement the meeting schedule for the Special Committee for City Beautification, and has assigned a specialized team to work out a timetable for the implementation of the goals that have been set up by the Commission, and it welcomed the proposal of the Sultanate of Oman on organizing the two workshops “E-Waste” and “Green Cities”.  

  The meeting discussed the recommendations of the 7^th and 8^th municipal work conferences which took place in Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to prior free workshops and approved the recommendations of the “modern electronic services in municipal work” workshop in Qatar. It confirmed as well the initiation of two workshops in Kuwait; one in the field of health services entitled "spoiled food" which will be held on November 19^th-21^st, 2012, and the other workshop entitled “the development of service facilities on highways” in the field of enterprises development, which will be held on February 4^th-6^th, 2013.

   Communication officers in the field of municipal work and the General Secretariat have been assigned to implement the recommendations of the Conference of the 7^th  municipal work in the Kingdom of Bahrain in accordance with the terms of reference of municipal work, and to organize the events of the 7^th Municipal Labor Conference.

   During the meeting, the GCC Prize for municipal work was approved, as well as the request of Member States to nominate representatives for the award in addition to assigning liaison officers in the field of municipal work to activate the work of this award.

  It is worth mentioning that the 15^th meeting which was held in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates last year, has discussed the adoption of the operational procedures of the general framework of the common urban strategy, as well as the general framework for the development of the urban environment and the objectives of  the common municipal work. The Cooperation Council municipal work is highly successive, that is achieved  developments at all levels, and its accomplishments has become a model of excellence for the continuous monitoring and the wise guidance from the leaders of the GCC countries.