The Council of Ministers, during its sixteenth regular session, today, Tuesday 4-18-2023, approved the recommendation of the Ministerial Council for Social Services, the implementation plan for the national policy for the sustainability of urban development projects (palms) submitted by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research – University of Karbala, College of Engineering.
This policy aims to preserve the environment, protect natural resources, reduce pollution, save energy with the use of alternatives, conserve water and recycle waste, and identify the factors affecting urban sustainability in Iraq from the environmental, social and economic aspects of local urbanization and their importance for the country.
The project also included preparing and designing an Iraqi scale to assess the sustainability of urban development projects, whether existing or new, during the first year of the policy’s entry into force.
The initiative included a recommendation to the Ministries of Planning, Construction and Housing, the Municipality of Baghdad, the National Investment Commission and investment commissions in all governorates to adopt the scale and apply it to all urban development projects to determine and evaluate their sustainability in order to decide on their acceptance or subject them to possible standards to raise their sustainability, as well as the development of traditional building and construction methods towards sustainable construction. .
The policy will also contribute to creating a conceptual platform and base for developing sustainability assessment frameworks not only for Iraq, but for other neighboring countries in the other region and beyond, which have conditions similar to legal requirements, as it stipulated that “there is no need to amend a new law or legislation, and it can be sufficient By issuing a decision by the Council of Ministers that is binding on all concerned parties to apply the national scale (Nakheel – Palms) to assess the sustainability of urban development projects.
