Group Wins $100,000 Land, Housing Award

A Rio de Janeiro based foundation that promotes land, housing and human rights has been selected as the winner of the 2010 Shaik Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa UN-HABITAT Award.
The awards which carries a cash prize of $100,000 will be presented to the Land and Housing Programme of the Bento Rubiao Founation at the fifth session of the world Urban Forum in Rio next march.
The announcement was made as UN-HABITAT team visited the kingdom last week for talks with senior government officials.
The UN-HABITAT delegation was led by Mr. Alain Grimad, senior Human settlements Officer for the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab states. He was accompanied by Mr. Filiep Decorte, Chief Technical Advisor, Palestine, Mr. Nael Salman, Habitat Programme Manager, West Bank, Palistine, Mr. Abdalla Abbas, former UN-HABITAT manager now working with the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The team held talks with Sheikh Hussam Bin Essa Alkhalia, Advisor to Prime Minister of Kingdom to UN-HABITAT and Mr. Ab dulla Abdullatif Abdulla, under secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kindgom of Bahrain.
Both hosts have reiterated their satisfaction with UN-HABITAT work worldwide and in the region in particular in the OPT where the money from the kingdom of Bahrain has been well used.
Citing the good relationship between Mrs Anna Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT’S Executive Director, and the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hussam Bin Essa Al-Khalifa, the officials stressed Bahrain’s wish to maintain the strong co-operation initiated since 2007 and its willingness to continue supporting UN-HABITAT, especially in palistine and also on its global mandate, by having UN-HABITAT’S flagship reports translated into Arabic.