We, the members of the Jury, having reviewed 43 best practices nominated by an Independent Technical Advisory Committee have decided that the following initiatives should be given special recognition in the form of the Tokyo and Dubai Awards for Excellence in Improving the Living Environment at the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements - Habitat II in Istanbul, 3-14 June 1996.

• Project on Sites and Services for Family Groups with Low Income Living in the North of Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Integration Council in the Favelas’ Rehabilitation Process, Fortaleza, Brazil
• Metro Toronto's Changing Communities: Innovative Responses, Metro Toronto, Canada
• Post-calamity Reconstruction of Anhui Province's Rural Areas, China
• Successful Institutionalization of Community-based Development in the Commune of Adjamé, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
• A Women's Self-help Organization for Poverty Alleviation in India: The SEWA Bank, India
• Shelter Upgrading, Agadir, Morocco
• City Management in Tilburg, The Netherlands
• Local Initiative Programme: Community Planning Process and City/Neighbourhood Partnership in Lublin, Poland
• Community Information Resource Centre (CIRC), Alexandra, South Africa
• "Don't Move, Improve", Community-owned and-governed Urban Revitalisation Project, South Bronx, New York City, USA
• City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

The Jury further endorses the work and the report of the Technical Advisory Committee which undertook the review of some 600 submissions at its meeting in Rotterdam, 26 February - 1 March 1996. The 43 nominations to the Jury are meritous in their own right. The practices represent excellent examples of processes and practices that will help us meet the challenges facing the world's cities and communities in the 21st century. No selection could possibly do justice to the wealth of experience which they embody.
The Jury therefore wants to emphasize that its final selection for the Awards of Excellence should be seen as an acknowledgment and appreciation of the hundreds of initiatives which have been submitted from all regions of the world. In making its selection, the Jury took note of the criteria established by the Preparatory Committee for Habitat II and the additional considerations advanced in the Dubai Declaration resulting from the Dubai International Conference on Best Practices held in November 1995. These included:

• Tangible impact on improving people's living environments
• Partnerships between two or more key actors
• Sustainability
• Innovativeness
• Transferability
• Gender concerns

In reaching its conclusion the members of the Jury worked in two independent groups, each selecting 16 from the 43 submissions, and then, in plenary, determined the final list. Members of the Jury were unanimous in the selection of the award winners. This unanimity demonstrates the remarkable consistency and quality of the best practices and reinforces the assessment of the Technical Advisory Committee.
The Jury concurs with and strongly supports the recommendations of the Technical Advisory Committee with regard to the continuation of the Best Practices Initiative, most notably that:

The Habitat II Conference endorse the strategy of establishing a global network of regional and thematic centres to continue the process of identifying, disseminating and learning from best practices, and the establishment of a broad-based consultative mechanism, including all major groups of actors and stakeholders, to guide the further development of the Best Practices Initiative so as to ..."explore and promote new ways and means of transferring knowledge, experience and expertise on a North-North, North-South, South-South and South-North basis";
The Best Practices Initiative pursue partnership arrangements and innovative means of financing its core activities; that governments continue to provide in-cash and in-kind contributions for the continued development of the Best Practices Initiative, particularly in supporting the work of regional and thematic centres in developing countries.

The Jury strongly believes that the Best Practices Initiative:
effectively integrates the efforts, expertise and experience of all stakeholders in providing practical solutions to some of the most critical social, economic, environmental and human settlement problems facing an urbanising world;
offers the means for mutual exchange and learning and constitutes a model for the approaching human settlement and development in the century ahead.

Finally, the Jury would like to acknowledge the invaluable support and hospitality of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
TORONTO, 29 MARCH 1996

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Members of the Jury

Mr. Alan Tonks, Chairman of the Jury
Chairman of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto
Toronto, CANADA

Mr. Mutsuo Mabuchi
Director-General of External Affairs
Tokyo Metropolitan Government
Tokyo, JAPAN

Mr. Hussain Nasser Lootah
Assistant Director-General
Environment & Health Affairs
Dubai Municipality
Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Professor Edward S. Ayensu
President
Panafrican Union for Science and Technology
Accra, GHANA

Mr. Deepak S. Parekh
Chairman
Housing Development Finance Corporation
Bombay, INDIA

Ms. Joan MacDonald
Under-Secretary of State
Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo
Santiago, CHILE

Mr. Mohammed Abdul Karim Julfar
Head of Administrative Development Office
Dubai Municipality
Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Mr. Jose Antonio Zorrilla,
Consul General of Spain
Toronto, CANADA

Mr. Gerrit Ph. Brokx,
Mayor of Tilburg,
Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee
Tilburg, The Netherlands

Mr. Dianne Dillon-Ridgley,
Vice-Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee
U.S. President's Council on Sustainable Development
Iowa City, USA

Mr. Hisao Watanabe
Chief Representative of New York
Tokyo Metropolitan Government
New York, USA

Secretariat to the Jury

Mr. Ed Frank
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies
Rotterdam, THE NETHERLANDS

Mr. Nicholas You
Co-ordinator
Global Best Practices Initiative
Nairobi, KENYA

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For more information, please contact:

Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme (BLP)
UN-HABITAT
P.O. Box 30030, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: (254 20) 623029; 624981; 624328
Fax: (254 20) 623080, 624266, 624267
Email: bestpractices@unhabitat.org

Dubai Municipality
P.O.Box 67
Dubai
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Tel: (+971) 4 206 4414 / 221 5555
Fax: (+971) 4 222 1319 / 224 6666
E-mail: info@dm.gov.ae
dubai-award@dm.gov.ae
Web: http://dubai-award.dm.gov.ae