Coveted honour

Manama : Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has approved the nomination of Prof. Anna Tibaijuka, former Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Developments in Tanzania to win the “His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Award for Sustainable Development.” She is also the former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT).

Tibaijuka was nominated for the award on the recommendations and study submitted by the award’s jury in recognition of her achievements in providing creative solutions for sustainable development. 

The new edition of the award has adopted new criteria that are consistent with HRH the Prime Minister’s vision to achieve sustainable development. 

They are also compatible with the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 adopted by world leaders in September 2015 during the UN Sustainable Development Summit 2015 in New York.

According to Prince Khalifa’s vision, the standards of his award focus on dealing actively with the UN sustainable development goals 2030, including the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. 

The award will be presented in a grand ceremony to be held at the UN headquarters in New York in September on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly session, under the theme: “The Sustainable Development Goals: A universal push to transform our world.”

The “His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Award for Sustainable Development” was announced in Geneva in July 2007 during a ceremony in which the UN-Habitat bestowed the 2006 Scroll of Honour Award in Urban Development and Housing on HRH the Prime Minister.

The first winner of HRH Premier’s award for sustainable development was “The Green Brigade” project in Burkina Faso in 2008, while the second was the Brazilian Bento Rubião Foundation’s “Right to Land and Right to Housing” programme in 2010.