Al Sheehaniya Municipality director Jaber Hassan al-Jaber has received the Unesco Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) membership certificate, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported today.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) had recently accredited Al Sheehaniya as a GNLC member. This marks an achievement for the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, represented by Al Sheehaniya Municipality, for its efforts to spread the concepts of sustainability and partnership with community institutions.

Al Sheehaniya is the third Qatari municipality to obtain the Unesco Global Network of Learning Cities membership after Al Wakrah and Al Shamal.

Unesco’s Institute for Lifelong Learning director David Atchoarena welcomed Al Sheehaniya's accession to the GNLC after meeting all the membership criteria. This came through the municipality's adoption of a strategy to spread the concepts of sustainability and integrate society into it, QNA said.

Al-Jaber received the membership certificate as well as a letter from the Qatar National Commission for Education, Culture and Science secretary-general Hamda Hassan al-Sulaiti. She congratulated the Al Sheehaniya Municipality on obtaining the membership, wishing it continued success and co-operation to achieve the goals of sustainable development and lifelong learning of the Unesco Global Network of Learning Cities.

"Unesco aims to adopt the education city approach to achieve sustainable development in accordance with the 2013 Beijing Declaration, and the outcomes of the second conference in New Mexico in 2015, which seeks to ensure that citizens and the local community benefit from public facilities such as water, sanitation, hygiene and parks, in addition to opening ways to integrate the local community with different cultures, open horizons for political dialogue, take advantage of technological development and communication, and develop health, educational, technical and sports services for all segments of society," QNA quoted Atchoarena as saying.