BELGIAN TECHNICAL COOPERATON

The Local Infrastructure and Capacity Building Project and the Belgian Technical Cooperation (LICP/BTC) concluded a training course under the rubric "Spatial Strategic Planning", implemented by the Urban Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Housing of the Arab Republic of Egypt, in order to build the capacity of the Municipalities, Organization and Planning Department Engineers in Tulkarem, Salfeet and Jerusalem Governorates and the Ministry of Local Government, which lasted five days during the last week.

Ten Engineers participated in this training course where it included several axes among them regional urban planning, and sustainable development for Dr. Azza Sirri, Training Director at the Institute for the Training and Research, the Canadian and Tunisian experience in Urban and Facilities Planning and the Creation of Modern Cities for Dr. Pierre Saint Sere, The Preparation of the National Strategic Plan for Dr. Al-Beely Ismail Al-Beely, Geographic Information Systems and analysis program for Decision Making for Engineer Shareef Al-Bajoury. Then, Dr. Ismail Amer, Professor of Planning at Al-Azhar University, talked about how to prepare jointly a city strategic plan.

During the training course, several field locations were visited including the Alexandria Water Company and Sanitation in the city of Alexandria where the Board Chairman of the company, Eng. Nadia Abdoh, indicated the importance of planning for the strategic plan of the company taking into consideration the spatial dimension of the plan, which includes the development of water resources and improve services through finding a center for public service and follow-up of emergency situations, as she explained to the participants the modern electronic method to follow-up the problems of the citizens and maintenance of the water networks using the Askada System.

The participants also visited the City of 6 October as a sample of modern city construction around the city of Cairo to identify closely on the importance of modern cities planning to ease the pressure on existing cities and redistribute around the large cities in order to benefit from those experiences and apply them in Palestine. Then, the Deputy Head of the City of 6 October, Engineer �Ala� Abdel Aziz, made a presentation on how to construct a city and the legal and engineering steps that were followed in the city. After that, he presented to the participants the various facilities of low income residential areas, industrial zones, green and other areas.

At the closing ceremony, the Director of the Belgian Project, Ms. Majeda Nabhan, made a brief explanation about the Belgian Technical cooperation (BTC) and the Local Infrastructure and Capacity Building Project (LICP) noting the importance of this project and its achievements in the service of the targeted municipalities and the development of their capacities especially in the areas of planning and development. Ms. Nabhan also thanked the people in charge of the Urban Training Institute for the facilities and arrangements they extended for a number of field visits in Egypt.

Dr. Mustafa Demerdash, Chairman of the Council of the Institute of Urban Studies and Research, made a speech at the closing ceremony stressing on the importance of planning and development in general, which is the basis of success in all sectors, and he also thanked the Belgian Technical Cooperation and the training course participants for the continued cooperation and selecting the Urban Training Institute to implement this training course noting to the fact that this was the second training course that is implemented in the institute where a previous one took place in the field of modern cities planning two years ago.

In his turn, Engineer Adnan Rabee�, Director of Planning Department in Tulkarem Local Government Directorate, stressed on the importance of such training courses and field visits related to Urban and Strategic Planning especially that the Ministry of Local Government is working at developing strategic plans in participation with the Local Government Units.

At the end, Dr. Mustafa Al-Demerdash and his deputy Mr. Shareef Fakhri, Dr. Azza Sirri and Mrs. Majeda Nabhan handed over the certificates to the participants.

The participants of the Spatial Strategic Planning Training Course were: Ahed Mohammad Nimer Fares / Attil Municipality, Husam Al-Deen Amin Kamel / Deir Al-Ghsoun Municipality, Mohammad Abdel Hamid Mohammad Mousa / Kifl Hares Municipality, Ibrahim Khalil Ibrahim Khalil / Al-Kafriyat, Ali Abu Ayyash / Jerusalem Local Government Directorate, Nazeeh Omar Mohammad Salah / West Salfeet JSCPD, Ahmad Mohammad Naim Ahmad Taqtaq / Salfeet Municipality, Jihad Mohammad Ahmad Rabaya�a / Ministry of Local Government � Ramallah, Adnan Asa�ad Mohammad Hijah / Tulkarem Local Government Directorate, and Muntaser Awad Omar Dar Abu Hammad / Salfeet Local Government Directorate.

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