By KUNA,
Doha : The Third Gulf Municipal Council, which kicked off here earlier on Monday, wrapped up the first day of its activities with deliberations on municipal systems in the Gulf nations.
During a session of the meeting, the participating representatives presented their countries’ experiments in municipal councils, focusing on their role in sustainable development.
Addressing the debate, Eid Motlaq al-Khaldi, chief of the GCC Secretariat Municipalities Administration, expounded on the role of the administration in the development of common municipal action.
He hailed holistic strategic urban planning in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members as one of the key goals which the GCC Secretariat sough to notch up.
He also pointed to other aspects bearing on urban environment development, national cadre training, food control, investment stipulation for financing municipal projects, levying municipal duties and preserving distinguished Gulf urban heritage.
For his part, Dr. Yussef Mohamed Ebeidan, a professor of political sciences at Qatar University and a human right activist, elaborated in a working paper constitutional development in Qatar, which, he said, was launched at the advent of the 1950s.
The first stage witnessed the harbingers of administrative and organizational development of the state, especially after it began to export oil in late 1949, he said.
The administration organizational emerged prominently in the second stage after a Shura (advisory) Council was set up in 1964 and the temporary governing statute was adopted in April 1970.
The three-day conference provides a good opportunity for the participants to share experience and views on municipal action and to find ways to reactivate the role of GCC municipalities in sustainable development.