Projects that help city dwellers from Argentina to Uzbekistan honoured by UN settlements agency

Projects that help impoverished city dwellers in countries ranging from Argentina to Uzbekistan have been honoured by the United Nations settlements agency.

At a glittering ceremony yesterday in Dubai, the Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), Anna Tibaijuka, presented this year's joint UN-HABITAT and Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment.

A $30,000 cash prize, trophy and commemorative certificate were presented to the two representatives from each of the 10 winning practices, which were recognized for their work in improving living conditions on a sustainable basis.

Among the honourees were the Urban Agriculture Programme of Argentina; the Tomorrow's Seeds Human Development and Urban Poverty Reduction programme in Brazil; the First Nations Community Planning project of Canada; the Brownfield Remediation of the Tangshan Southern Coal Mining Area in China; and the Green path to Sustainable Development of Marginal Drylands in Iran.

The other winners were the Sand Dams of Kitui: Providing Potable and Production Water in Semi-Arid Lands of Kitui District of Kenya; the IT4YOUTH computer literacy programme for young Palestinians; the Alba-Ter Consortium of the River Ter Basin of Spain; the Business and Competence Development: Working to reduce poverty, unemployment and hardship in Togo and a Poverty Reduction Programme for women in Uzbekistan.

Later this year the Best Practices Award is planning to organize an International Conference on Lessons learned from Best Practices contributing toward the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of anti-poverty targets to be reached by 2015.

Each of the 48 winning practices since the inception of the award will be invited to Dubai to present their experience, including challenges, innovative strategies and transfer of the process.