Council of Ministers, during its sixteenth regular session , on Tuesday -18-April 2023, approved recommendation of Ministerial Council for Social Services, implementation plan for national policy of sustainability of urban development projects (palms) submitted by Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research – University of Kerbala, Faculty of Engineering.
This policy aims at preserving environment, protecting natural resources,reduceing pollution, saving energy with the use of alternatives, conserving water and recycle waste, and identifying the factors affecting urban sustainability in Iraq from environmental, social and economic aspects of local urbanization and their importance for the country.
The project also includes preparing and designing an Iraqi scale to assess sustainability of urban development projects, whether existing or new.
The initiative includes a recommendation to Ministries of Planning, Construction and Housing, Municipality of Baghdad, 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 so as to raise their sustainability, as well as development of traditional building and construction methods towards sustainable construction. .
The policy will also contribute to create a conceptual platform and base of developing sustainability assessment frameworks not only for Iraq, but for other neighboring countries in other region and beyond, which have conditions similar to legal requirements, as it stipulateds that there is no need to amend a new law or legislation, and it can be sufficient by issuing a decision by Council of Ministers that is binding on all concerned parties to apply national scale (Palms) to assess sustainability of urban development projects.
