Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs Join the Road Safety Center of Excellence

Tuesday 16 September 2008

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs will join the German-Jordanian University (GJU), Greater Amman Municipality, and HIKMAT Road Safety foundation to become the fourth party in the Memorandum of Understanding singed last June for the establishment of the Road Safety Center of Excellence, located at the German-Jordanian University. The parties signed on 16 September 2008 an addendum to the original Memorandum of Understanding, stipulating the addition of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs as a fourth party. The four sides were represented by: His Excellency Eng. Shehade Abu Hdeib/ Minister of Municipal Affairs, Prof. Labib Khadra/ President of GJU, His Excellency Eng. Amer Al-Bashir/ Deputy of Amman Mayor, and Mr. Maher Qadura/ President of HIKMAT Road Safety foundation.

Through this addition, the Ministry will offer technical support to the Road Safety Center by providing documents, information, and blueprints needed for its road safety activities, in addition to offering financial support. The Ministry will also nominate specialized staff to participate in the courses offered by the Center.

It is noteworthy that the Road Safety Center of Excellence was established at the German-Jordanian University with the aim of qualifying specialized personnel in the field of road safety, conducting studies and research about road safety vital issues, coming up with solutions to road problems, and enhancing positive public attitudes and practices. It will offer a professional diploma program in road safety, in addition to short training courses and workshops. .


Already, the Center began its activities at the German-Jordanian University last August by organizing a two-week workshop entitled "Road Safety Audit – level one". Numerous specialists took part in the workshop representing various official bodies, such as Greater Amman Municipality, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Transport Regulatory Commission, Public Security Directorate, Jordanian Engineers Association, Ministry of Education, insurance companies, and other bodies. German professors who are international experts in this field were especially invited by GJU from Germany to give the lectures of the workshop.

From an Out of Place societies to an Out of Place Identities

Dubai Dancing Towers model presented at the Guggenheim Museum in NY
Photo by Emad Salameh

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I prefer to be realistic, and I want to keep positive. I don't see any famous global architectural firm or building technology that comes from the middle east. CCC are contractors working for Oil companies "with Headquarters in Greece". Zaha Hadid is Iraqi who worked and practice in London. Meanwhile, working for others is what we are good at for sure. On the other hand, the world pioneers comes from a minority group of %1 of the world population: Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Daniel Lebskind, Peter Eisenman, etc... are all Jews who designed and built environments that reflects their believes and ideas.

I am not negative or criticizing I am defending our out of place architects , who end up working for other global companies or in other countries to design for other societies, whom became another kind of aliens.

In our lands we see alien buildings built by aliens "architects and developers" building the future of our societies, being out of place.

We need to answer this question: Do we have any Building Materials or Building Technology company from the middle east?

I looked into the specifications of major projects and realized that %99.9 were Foreign companies.

So, lets try to think about building our own technology and manufacture our own products instead of competing for the largest or the longest and building the Sea.