Decree No. (13) of 2000
Establishing the Dubai International Award for
Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment[1]
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We, Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai,
Do
hereby issue this Decree.
Pursuant to this Decree, an award
named the "Dubai International
Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment (the “DIABP”) is established. The DIABP is hereby
affiliated to the Dubai Municipality, and will have legal personality and the
full capacity to act in accordance with its objectives, its Charter, and the
provisions of this Decree.
The objectives, organisational
structure, and management framework of the DIABP; the rules and procedures for nomination for and granting of the DIABP
award; and the criteria for evaluating practices are set forth in the DIABP Charter attached
hereto.
The DIABP is hereby exempt from all taxes and all
government, municipal, and customs fees and duties.
This Decree comes into force on the
day on which it is issued, and will be published in the Official Gazette.
Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Ruler of Dubai
Issued in Dubai on 24 May 2000
Corresponding to 20 Safar 1421 A.H.
Charter of the
Dubai International Award for
Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment
This Charter will be cited as the “Charter of the Dubai International
Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment”.
For the purposes of implementing this
Charter, the following words and expressions will have the meaning indicated
opposite each of them unless the context implies otherwise:
DIABP: |
The Dubai
International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment. |
DIABP Patron: |
His Highness the
Ruler of the Emirate of Dubai. |
Board of Trustees: |
The board of trustees
of the DIABP. |
The DIABP will have a permanent head
office located in the city of Dubai. The DIABP award will be granted once every
two (2) years.
The objective of the DIABP is to
recognise outstanding achievements and practices in improving the living
environment, in accordance with the criteria attached to this Charter.
Nominations for the DIABP award will
be accepted in
respect of
practices in one or more of the following areas:
-
shelter and urban infrastructures;
-
sustainable development of human settlements;
-
gender equality and combating social exclusion;
-
improved production and consumption cycles;
-
urban poverty reduction and job creation;
-
safe water supply and public health;
-
improving the urban living environment;
-
natural and man-made disasters;
-
responsiveness to the ideas and needs of the youth;
-
waste collection, recycling, and reuse;
-
access to public transport and telecommunications;
-
prevention of crime and achieving social equity;
-
enhancing the role of government and the promoting accountability and transparency
in the government;
-
use of information in decision making;
-
architecture and urban design;
-
meeting the needs of the elderly; and
-
innovative applied practices.
Nomination for the DIABP award is
open to:
1. government
organisations or agencies, including aid agencies;
2. national habitat committees or habitat committee centres;
3. multilateral agencies
(United Nations agencies, the World Bank, etc.);
4. cities, local
authorities, or their associations;
5. non-governmental
organisations (NGOs);
6. community-based
organisations (CBOs);
7. the private sector;
8. research and academic
institutions;
9. media outlets;
10. public or private
foundations; and
11. individual initiatives
submitted through any of the above-mentioned entities or groups.
a.
The amount of the DIABP award will be three hundred
thousand US dollars (USD 300,000.00), to be divided equally among the best ten (10) practices
nominated for the award.
b. Each winner of the
DIABP award will be delivered
a
trophy and an appreciation certificate specifically designed for the award.
The organisational structure of the
DIABP will be comprised of:
a.
the Board of Trustees;
b.
the Technical Advisory Committee; and
c.
the Jury.
a.
The Board of Trustees will be formed, and its internal
affairs will be regulated, pursuant to a resolution issued by the Chairman of
the Dubai Municipality.
b. The Director General of the Dubai Municipality
will assign
the
administrative employees in charge of managing the DIABP events, and will determine their duties and the scope of their
functions.
The Board of Trustees is the
authority in
charge of
supervising
the
management of the DIABP affairs, developing its policy, and regulating its work,
in accordance with the provisions of this Charter and the resolution forming the
Board of Trustees. For these purposes, the Board of Trustees may:
1.
propose the implementing bylaws regulating the work of
the Board of Trustees and submit the same to the Chairman of the Dubai
Municipality for approval;
2.
prepare the draft annual budget of the DIABP;
3.
determine the general and specific criteria and rules of eligibility for
nomination for the DIABP award; and, where required, consult on the same with
the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (the “UN-Habitat”);
4.
form the Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury, in consultation with
the UN-Habitat;
5.
issue the bylaws regulating the work of the DIABP committees;
6.
appoint a rapporteur to the Board of Trustees and
determine his duties; and
7.
perform any other duties assigned to it by the DIABP
Patron or the Chairman of the Dubai Municipality.
a.
The Technical Advisory Committee will be comprised of
no less than seven (7) and no more than eleven (11) members, including its
chairman.
b.
Members of the
Technical Advisory Committee must have international experience in any of the
areas of the DIABP award
and
must hold academic qualifications and work experience in the same areas.
a. The Jury will be
comprised of five (5) members, including the chairman of the Jury. The Jury
must have at least one (1) member nominated by the Dubai Municipality.
b. A Jury member must be a prominent world figure with a
background that is relevant to the areas of the DIABP award.
The Technical Advisory Committee
and the Jury will perform their duties under this Charter in accordance with
the procedures and principles approved by the Board of Trustees. In selecting the members of the
Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury, the following must be taken into
consideration:
a.
independence and transparency;
b.
balanced regional and gender representation on both the
Technical Advisory Committee and the Jury; and
c.
members may not belong to or represent any of the
entities nominated for the DIABP award.
Applications for nomination of practices
for the DIABP award will be submitted by the entities stated in Article (6) of
this Charter in accordance with the procedures prescribed in the approved applicant
guidebook. For purposes of
review and initial evaluation, the applications will be submitted to the Dubai Municipality,
the UN-Habitat, or any
other partner determined by the Dubai Municipality.
A submitted nomination for the DIABP award will be accompanied by a report on the
nominated practice and a brief biography of the nominee.
a. Nomination applications
for the DIABP award will be submitted upon announcement by the Dubai
Municipality and the UN-Habitat that nomination is open, which will take place during the first quarter
of the two-year cycle
of the DIABP award.
b. An entity wishing to submit a nomination application for the
DIABP award must submit the same within the deadlines prescribed by the approved applicant
guidebook.
a. For the purpose of
evaluating the practices nominated for the DIABP award, the criteria attached
to this Charter are hereby approved. These criteria are contained in the Dubai Declaration on
Best Practices,
which was
issued by the Dubai International Conference on Human Settlements, held in
Dubai in November 1995, and was adopted and endorsed during the meetings of the World
Associations of Cities and Local Authorities, and the Second United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), held in Istanbul, Turkey, in June
1996.
b. The Board of Trustees
may, as it deems appropriate and conducive to achieving the objectives of the DIABP, grant any exemption from, or addition to,
the criteria.
The UN-Habitat and the partner
institutions designated by the Dubai Municipality in accordance with Article
(14) of this Charter will review all nomination applications submitted to the DIAPB to verify that they
are compliant in principle with the criteria and provisions stipulated in this
Charter.
For this purpose, the UN-Habitat
and the partner institutions may request more information and clarifications
from the applicants in respect of their applications.
a. Upon verifying their
compliance with the basic criteria, as provided for in Article (18) of this
Charter, nomination applications
for the DIABP
award will be referred to
the Technical Advisory Committee, which will convene in Dubai as the
permanent headquarters of the DIABP or in any other city that wishes to host its meetings. The
Technical Advisory Committee will convene on the first day of the month of June
following the application closing date, and its meetings will
be valid if attended by the
absolute majority of its members.
b. The committee will
conduct a detailed review of the applications and then prepare a comprehensive report on the same, which includes the following:
1.
the procedures adopted by the committee for selecting
the best practices,
and description of the phases of the selection process;
2.
a list of no more than one hundred (100) best practices selected by
the committee from amongst
the practices included in submission applications referred to it; and
3.
a shortlist of
no more than fifty (50) best practices selected by the committee, at its discretion, to
be referred
to the Jury for final selection of the DIABP award-winning practices.
a.
The Jury will convene in the presence of all its
members in the city of Dubai immediately after completion of the work of the Technical Advisory
Committee. The Jury will review
the practices referred to it by the Technical Advisory Committee and select no more than
ten (10) best practices that are
entitled to win
the DIABP award.
b.
Where the Jury deems that none of the applications referred
to it is entitled to win the DIABP award, it may withhold the award in whole
or in part. In any event, the decisions of the Jury will be final.
a. A DIABP award winner
may submit
applications
for the upcoming cycles of the DIABP, provided that they relate to nominated practices whose topics are
different from the practice that has already won the DIABP award.
b.
Practices that have already been submitted to the DIABP
in previous cycles but have not won may be resubmitted, provided that all enhancements and improvements that are made to these practices, and that justify their resubmission, are
clearly stated.
The DIABP award will be delivered
to its winners at a special ceremony held for this purpose on the World Habitat Day, being the first Monday of
October of the year in
which the award is won.
The Dubai Municipality will finance
the DIABP with up to one million US dollars (USD 1,000,000.00) for the two (2) years in respect of which the DIABP award is
granted. For
this purpose, the Dubai
Municipality must allocate necessary
budget
items within its budget.
The DIABP funds will be disbursed as required for the
achievement of its objectives, as set forth in this Charter; and
for the management and
administration of its affairs, in accordance with the relevant rules and
principles established by the Board of Trustees and with the financial
regulations applicable to the Dubai Municipality.
Grants, gifts, and bequests provided to the DIABP by any
entity will be accepted in accordance with the directives of the DIABP Patron.
This Charter may only be amended, altered, or suspended pursuant
to a resolution issued by the DIABP Patron.
The DIABP award will remain the
property of the Dubai Municipality where a decision is made to withhold it, or where
the winner declines to receive it.
The DIABP award will be delivered
to the heirs of a deceased natural person who is declared winner of the DIABP award.
Where a DIABP award winner is
unable to receive his award for reasons beyond his control, the Dubai
Municipality will decide the action to be taken in this regard.
The bylaws and
procedures governing the affairs of the DIABP
that are in force on the effective date of this Charter will remain enforceable
to the extent that they do not contradict the provisions hereof, until new
superseding bylaws and procedures are issued.
Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Ruler of Dubai
Issued in Dubai on 24 May 2000
Corresponding to
20 Safar 1421 A.H.
The following basic
criteria for evaluating nominated practices are hereby approved, and will serve as the basis for determining the DIABP award-winning best
practices.
1.
Impact
A practice must
demonstrate a positive and tangible impact on improving the living environment of
people in one of the following primary or secondary significance areas:
a.
Sustainable Habitat and Community Development:
1.
affordable housing, services, and community amenities;
2.
easy access to land and finance;
3.
community-based planning and participation in decision
making and resource allocation;
4.
safe water supply and public health requirements;
5.
inner-city core, neighbourhood, and settlement revival
and restoration; and
6. safe and healthy
building materials and technologies.
b.
Sustainable Urban and Regional Development:
1.
job creation and eradication of poverty;
2.
reduction of pollution and improvement of
environmental health;
3.
improved access to public transport and telecommunications;
4.
improved waste collection, recycling, and treatment;
5.
greening of the city and effective use of public spaces;
6.
improved production and consumption cycles, including
replacement or reduction of non-renewable
resources;
7.
conservation of natural resources and preservation of
the environment;
8.
more efficient energy use and production;
9.
preservation of important archaeological sites; and
10. formulation and
implementation of integrated and comprehensive urban development strategies.
c.
Sustainable, Efficient, Accountable, and Transparent
Settlements Management:
1.
establishing more effective and efficient management
and information systems;
2.
gender equality
and equity in decision making, resource allocation, and programme design
and implementation;
3.
crime control and prevention;
4.
improved disaster preparedness and mitigation, and
reconstruction;
5.
social integration and reduction of social exclusion;
6.
leadership in inspiring action and change, including
change in public policy;
7.
promotion of accountability and transparency;
8.
empowerment of people, neighbourhoods, and communities
and integration
of their
contributions;
9.
acceptance of and responsiveness to social and cultural diversity;
10. potential for
transferability, adaptability, and replicability;
11. appropriateness to
local conditions and levels of development;
12. promotion of social
equality and equity; and
13. improvement of
inter-agency coordination.
2.
Partnership
Best practices must be based on a
partnership between at least two (2) of the entities mentioned in Article (6)
of this Charter.
3.
Sustainability
Best practices must
result in lasting changes in at least one (1) of the areas listed below:
1.
legislation, regulatory frameworks, bylaws, or
standards formally recognising the issues and problems that have been
addressed;
2.
social policies and/or sectoral strategies at the national
and sub-national level that have a potential for replication elsewhere;
3.
institutional frameworks and decision-making processes
that assign clear roles and responsibilities to various levels of groups and
sectors, such as central and local government organisations and community-based
organisations;
4.
efficient, transparent, and accountable management
systems; and
5.
management systems that make more efficient and
effective use of human, technical, financial, and natural resources.
4.
Leadership and Community Empowerment
1.
Leadership in inspiring action and change, including
change in public policy;
2.
promotion of accountability and transparency;
3.
empowerment of the people, neighbourhoods, and
communities and integration of their contributions;
4.
acceptance of and responsiveness to social and
cultural diversity;
5.
potential for transferability, adaptability, and
replicability; and
6. potential for
adaptation to local conditions and advanced levels of development.
5.
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion
Initiatives
which accept and respond to social and cultural diversity; promote social
equality and equity in all respects, such as income,
gender, age, and physical/mental condition; and recognise and value different
abilities.
©2024 The Supreme Legislation Committee in the
Emirate of Dubai
[1]Every effort has been made to produce an
accurate and complete English version of this legislation. However, for the
purpose of its interpretation and application, reference must be made to the original
Arabic text. In case of conflict, the Arabic text will prevail.