Damascus-Sana
While Syria is heading towards the stage of reconstruction, it highlights to the interface the necessity of having a national plan for housing and housing that takes into account demographic, urban, and economic changes, which requires the participation of all concerned parties to provide the necessary data and tools.
The National Framework for Regional Planning represents the gateway to the preparation of this map, which was approved by the executive and time program for the first stages of the document of basic directions for it last April by the Supreme Council for Regional Planning.
Deputy Minister of Public Works and Housing Mary Claire Al-Tali explained to SANA that the framework is based on updating the national spatial planning database in various sectors and demographic, urban, economic, natural, environmental and cultural axes and aims to define development centers and areas of major urban communities and environmental and tourism protection and protection of cultural heritage and reservoirs of mineral resources with Taking into account the goals and policies of reconstruction on a sustainability basis.
The head of the Regional Planning Authority, Dr. Rima Haddad, indicated that the project of updating and developing the national framework for regional planning, with its preparatory and first stages, and the importance of consulting with the authorities concerned with regional and population planning, taking opinions and proposals, and strengthening participatory on this framework are currently being discussed.
While Deputy Dean of the Higher Institute for Regional Planning, Dr. Reeda Deeb stressed the necessity of bringing together the ministries, authorities and the local community involved in the project to update the national framework for regional planning in a single platform to extract data and prepare logistical capabilities and tools and mechanisms appropriate for the start of the reconstruction phase.
The head of the Regional Development Department for Human Resources and Environmental Protection at the Higher Institute for Regional Planning at the University of Damascus, Dr. Ghada Bilal, explained the importance of activating human cadres in the decision-support directorates in the governorates to achieve the goals of the development program for Syria for the post-war period.
In turn, the head of the Syrian Commission for Family and Population Affairs Dr. Muhammad Akram Al-Qash saw that the directorates of planning and decision support in the governorates have the largest role in providing reliable and realistic data, noting the need to activate urban centers in the governorates to be the executive arm to secure modern and reliable data.
On the experience of the Urban Observatory in the Governorate of As-Suwayda, Eng. Firas Al-Baini, Director of Decision Support and Regional Planning, explained that it was the latest in 2008 and then re-activated to build a population and real estate database for the governorate and compare it with data for the years from 2010 to 2018, to reach a set of indicators, analyze it, monitor problems and ways to address them.
The first stage of the basic orientation document of the national framework for regional planning includes a guide to spatial planning studies in addition to a project to update and develop a draft of the national framework for regional planning and the preparation of the national plan for housing and housing as a priority in the reconstruction phase.
Rehab Ali