Her Excellency Mrs. Amna bint Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, participated in a dialogue session on "opportunities to provide adequate housing for citizens in accordance with a strong pluralistic system", with the participation of a number of officials and specialists from the United Kingdom, the Republic of France, the Republic of Canada, the Republic of Mexico and the Republic of the Philippines. In addition to the Republic of Kenya, within the framework of the participation of the delegation of the Kingdom of Bahrain in the work of the second session of the United Nations Habitat, held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The discussions of the dialogue session focused on a number of axes and objectives, the foremost of which is highlighting the impact of the central role of adequate housing in social and economic development, as well as the need to develop comprehensive and long-term policies to ensure the sustainability of the provision of social housing for citizens, provided that this includes the international challenges facing this. sector, and setting up mechanisms to coordinate roles among all bodies related to the housing system.
During her intervention in the session, Her Excellency the Minister of Housing and Urban Planning confirmed that the Kingdom of Bahrain was aware early on of the challenges related to the increase in demand for housing services as a result of the high rates of population growth and its reflection on the increase in demand for housing services, and the necessity of working to intensify and accelerate the provision of housing services to citizens with disabilities. limited income.
The minister pointed out that the policy of providing housing cities that the government has worked to provide since the sixties, starting with the Isa Town project, passing through Hamad Town and Zayed City, and ending with the five cities that the ministry is currently working on implementing at the same time, including the cities of Salman, Khalifa, East Hidd and East Sitra and the suburb of Ramli, indicate the early awareness of the Kingdom of the need to establish cities that accommodate thousands of housing units to meet thousands of requests, while providing sufficient community services and facilities that serve citizens.
The minister indicated that the government did not stop at providing housing cities only to meet housing demands, but also expanded partnership initiatives with the private sector to provide low-cost housing projects, and put forward government-supported financing programs to facilitate and accelerate the provision of housing services to citizens, benefiting that as a result, the Kingdom was able during The period from 2013 to 2022 was the completion of the royal directive to provide 40,000 housing services to citizens from various governorates, which is a record number of services that were provided within a short period of time.
The minister touched on the current efforts represented in creating a housing finance program that provides great flexibility in terms of diversifying financing purposes, and raising the value of the maximum and minimum for those government-supported finances, in addition to the government land development rights program in partnership with the private sector, a program that aims to provide thousands Housing units in various cities and governorates at prices that suit the value of the funds granted to citizens, noting that these programs allow the citizen several advantages, including immediate access to housing service without waiting, and flexibility in choosing the geographical location, type and size of the service in proportion to the requirements of his family.
On the other hand, the Minister said that the Kingdom is always keen to include all segments in the criteria for eligibility for housing service from those with limited income, including the categories of Bahraini women who have custody, divorcees, singles, widows, and minor children, while providing services for people with special needs, noting in this regard that The Ministry has provided housing services to more than 4,500 women, in addition to providing hundreds of housing units that serve people with special needs
