ISESCO Headquarters, Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco 12-13 Sha’aban 1438 A.H / 9-10 May 2017

Fourth Meeting of the Islamic Executive Bureau for the Environment & Senior Environmental Experts' Preparatory Meeting

Progress Report on the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Award for Environmental Management in the Islamic World”

IEBE-4/2017/2.7

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Pursuant to the approval of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, on 09/12/1435 A.H., to entrust the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) with the management of the Award of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Environmental Management in the Islamic World, under the supervision of the General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental Protection of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as may ensure its success, achieve its objectives and expand its scope to include the Islamic World; and within the framework of partnership agreement signed between ISESCO and the General Authority on the Award of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Environmental Management in the Islamic World, especially Item ii stating that “ISESCO is entrusted with the Secretariat of the Award, its scientific and technical supervision of its announcement, the steps for selecting winners and for organizing the Awards ceremony”, the 6th Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers (Rabat, 8-9 October 2015), welcomed entrusting ISESCO with the General Secretariat of the Award of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Environmental Management in the Islamic World.

The role of ISESCO as the General Secretariat of the Award consists of the following:

First: Academic Supervision

1. Running the Award Higher Committee made up of members from the Chair, from ISESCO, and from honorary experts specialized in the environment in such a way as to accommodate the Award’s new scope which covers the Islamic world as a whole and ensure fair representation of the African, Arab and Asian regions.

2. Supervising the work of the jury in which ISESCO shall, in addition to its role of designating arbitrators, follow up their work in the arbitration process and pay particular attention to the consolidation of assessment criteria among the members of the jury for the research papers or projects submitted for the Award with its four categories.

3. Ensuring academic supervision of the environmental areas and themes put forward for the Award while setting the required terms under each specialized environmental area, and classifying the submissions according to their respective areas before distributing them as per the specialization and language of the jury members.

Second: Supervision of the Technical and Communication Aspects

1. Publishing and distributing the introductory content of the Award on a large scale in the Member States via available media, in coordination with the supervisory body of the Award.

2. Holding press conferences and ensuring media coverage particularly at the Award announ-cement and giving ceremony.

3. Setting up a website and an electronic platform to follow up the course of the Award, publicize it and ensure encrypted communication among the nominees, the jury and the Higher Committee in order to follow up the nomination process and the jury results.

4. Activating the use of social media in introducing the Award and following up the nominations.

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Third: Administrative Supervision

1. Announcing the Award at the fixed dates and publicizing it among the parties concerned and

interested in the Islamic world.

2. Developing and implementing the Award’s media plan on a regular basis in order to publicize

it along with the winners’ works on a large scale.

3. Preparing a regular meeting for the Award Higher Committee in coordination with the

supervisory body of the Award.

4. Designating the Award jury members in coordination with the supervisory body of the Award

and submitting this matter for endorsement by the Higher Committee.

5. Receiving and documenting nominations before distributing them among the jury members

as per disciplines.

6. Ensuring the technical management of the website and connection tools with the nominees,

the jury members and the Higher Committee.

7. Making arrangements for the members’ travel and accommodation for the jury meetings.

8. Making arrangements for the Award-giving ceremony and venue selection in coordination with

the supervisory body of the Award.

9. Making arrangements for the winners’ travel and accommodation to attend the Award-giving

ceremony.

10. Ensuring the financial management and administrative coordination for the Award.

Activities of the General Secretariat of the Award

Since ISESCO has assumed its General Secretariat, this Award witnessed a significant

development in its activities commensurate with the expansion of its scope to include the Islamic

world. In this regard, the activities undertaken by the General Secretariat since the 6th session of

the Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers (October 2015) can be summarized as follows:

1. Setting up of the Award Higher Committee immediately after the 6th Islamic Conference

of Environment Ministers, in view of preparing the committee’s meeting and launching the

Award. Hence, the Higher Committee was set up taking into account the three African, Arab

and Asian regions and the eminent status of the Award in the Islamic world, as follow:

• Chair: H.E. the President of the General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental

Protection, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

• Secretary General: H.E. the Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization (ISESCO)

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Honorary membership (Members of the Higher Committee):

• H.E. Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia

• H.E. Mr Pa Ousman Jarju, Minister of Environment, Climate Change, Water and Wildlife of the Gambia

• H.E. Dr Mohammed Bin Ibrahim Al Tuwaijri, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Affairs in the League of Arab States

• H.E. Dr Ibrahim Ozdemir, Former Founding Rector of Hasan Kalyoncu University, Turkey

• H.E. Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan

Administrative membership

Chair of the jury: Vice-President for Environmental Affairs, General Authority of Meteorology and Environmental Protection, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Academic coordinator: Expert of Environmental Programmes, Directorate of Science and Technology, ISESCO

2. Designing of a new logo for the Award in line with the new scope including the Islamic World and in cooperation with specialized institutions, and final adoption of the proposed Award logo by the General Authority for Meteorology and Environmental Protection in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

3. Setting up of a website for publicizing the Award, and enabling candidates and interested persons to get all information on the Award and its categories as well as the conditions of nomination through the platform dedicated to the Award.

4. Holding a coordination meeting, on 20 May 2016 in Rabat, between the General Authority for Meteorology and Environmental Protection in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ISESCO, in order to identify action steps to be taken for the Award and to discuss the process of arbitration and the establishment of the electronic platform.

5. Setting up the electronic platform of the Award in accordance with the standards adopted globally to facilitate communication between the Presidency of the Award and its General Secretariat, and follow-up the reception of nominations, and the work with the jury members. The platform has an initial capacity of receiving about 500 candidates from the Islamic World.

6. Setting up of a Jury Commission for the Award composed of specialists from 13 ISESCO Member States taking into account the representation of the three African, Arab and Asian regions. The General Secretariat prepared the arbitration process with will be launched after May 2017, and determined the remunerations of the jury members in accordance with the budget allocated to the current edition 2016-2017.

7. Preparation of the statutory documents for approval at the first meeting of the Higher Committee through the following:

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- Preparation of the organizational structure of the Award.

- Preparation of a proposed list of members of the jury.

- Preparation of documents for publicizing the Award in the three languages of the Organization.

- Preparation of the media plan proposal for the announcement of the Award.

8. Holding the first meeting of the Higher Committee of the Award under the high patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (Jeddah, Kingdom Saudi Arabia, 26 September 2016). Among the most important recommendations were:

- Adoption of the list of the jury members.

- Approval of the new logo of the Award.

- Approval of the website and the electronic platform.

- Adoption of the media plan and organizational structure.

- Call for the announcement, at the beginning of the month of Muharram, of the Award, and reception of nominations as from the beginning of November 2016, to the end of April 2017.

9. Supporting the academic and technical work related to the Award by enrolling an environmental engineer in the Directorate of Science and Technology, immediately along with the process of launching the electronic platform and receiving nominations.

10. Announcing the launching of reception of nominations at the beginning of the month of Muharram, as per the decision of the Higher Committee, as from 1 November 2016 to the end of April 2017, through the website of the Award www.ksaaem.org and by assigning two e-mail addresses (info@ksaaem.org and superchair@ksaaem.org) linked to the website through which the queries will be received and answered.

11. Activation of the media plan of the Award, through the following:

• Disseminating a promotional text on the Facebook site in two stages, to include 270,000 subscribers at each stage, distributed to various Islamic countries, where at least 5,000 subscribers from each Member country were allocated.

• Corresponding with the National Commissions of the Member States and the international and regional organizations on the Award for its large-scale dissemination and announcement.

• Coordinating with the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World to publicize the Award in various universities, institutes and scientific centers in Member States.

• Interacting daily with the visitors’ questions at the website of the Award or the public corresponding with the Secretariat on the nomination. Explanatory texts have been added to simplify the methods of nomination on the platform.

• Publication of information about the Award in news agencies, newspapers and related websites.

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12. Holding a coordination meeting between the General Secretariat of the Award and the General Authority for Meteorology and Environment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (ISESCO Headquarters, 1-2 February 2017). Among the most important decisions were the following:

• Adoption of the minutes of the First Meeting of the Higher Committee of the Award.

• Adoption of the proposed areas of disbursement of the Award’s budget.

• Adoption of the remuneration of the members of the jury.

• Approval of the contents of the Award site

• Distribution of the prizes during the opening session of the Seventh Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers, to be held at ISESCO’s headquarters on 25-26 October 2017.

• Approval of the recommendation of the Higher Committee of the Award to send a letter to the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques, in which the Chairman of the Higher Committee and the Secretary General of the Award ask to redistribute the value allocated to the Award in its four categories and raise the financial value allocated for the General Secretariat of the Award.

• Approval of the redistribution of the value allocated to the Award at its four categories and raising the financial value for the General Secretariat starting from the next edition of the Award (2018-2019).

13. Extension of the nominations period to the end of May 2017 due to the growing interest in the Award by large numbers of social media users and others, which would increase the number of nominations resulting from the effort deployed by through the Award’s media plan and would give way to the largest number of contestant. During the first three days of the extension, there was a significant increase in the number of participants on social media concerning the Award which reached 11,600 responses in the Arab category and 2950 in the English category.

14. Monitoring the nominations process and flow:

Since the announcement of launching the nominations at the beginning of November 2016, the General Secretariat has received on the electronic platform nominations for the four categories, namely:

- Category I: Best research, achievements and practices.

- Category II: Best projects or activities in Public sector.

- Category III: Best projects or activities in Private sector.

- Category IV: Best leading practices for NGOs.

• The platform has been accessed and about 100 nominations were posted by participants from Member States. Some participants merely asked questions after the announcement in Facebook, and until the end of March 2017, about 200,000 users acknowledge receipt

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of the announcement. The reactions were expressed by the admiration and questioning of more than 45,000 people. The Secretariat will continue to receive nominations until the end of May 2017.

• The General Secretariat of the Award circulated a flyer on the Award on Facebook, in two stages, to include at each stage 270.000 subscribers to the site, among various Islamic countries, to which at least 5,000 subscribers were allocated from each Member States.

• As at the end of March 2017, Statistics of Award’s website indicate the following:

- More than 150,000 people have received the announcement in Arabic and French, where many of them have interacted by expressing admiration, participation or responses.

- 44,600 people made the announcement in English, with more than 23,000 of them interacting by expressing admiration, participation or responses.

• The General Secretariat of the Award has set an executive programme to activate the media plan until the Awards ceremony, which will take place during the opening session of the Seventh Islamic Conference of Environment Ministers (25-26 October 2017).