JEDDAH: Jeddah Urban Observatory (JUO) plays a significant role in accelerating the city’s social and economic development, said Mohammed Abdulsalam, vice mayor for strategic planning and development and supervisor of JUO.

“We play an important role in changing the face of Jeddah by preparing development indicators after collecting and analyzing data. Our aim is to achieve sustainable development,” he told Arab News.

He said Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal would officiate a meeting of the observatory’s Supreme Council on Tuesday to discuss JUO report and adopt policy decisions for boosting development in various sectors.

He said the meeting would be attended by Jeddah Mayor Hani Aburas, chairman of JUO’s executive committee, and other senior executives and experts. “We have been successful in developing 125 indicators,” he pointed out.

JUO was established in 2006 as the second urban observatory in the Kingdom. “We collect and analyze development indicators for the city,” Abdulsalam said, adding that it plays a significant role in preparing development policies.

“I would say that JUO is a kind of advisory body for policy makers, thus we can say that it’s the engine of sustainable urban development,” he said, adding that it prepares indicators following international standards.

JUO sets out development models on the basis of urban indicators and compare them with national targets and international benchmarks, “in order to determine where we are behind and what must be done to improve.”

He said the organization follows a just and unbiased system to evaluate performance of various departments.

Speaking about achievements, Abdulsalam said the JUO has won the best achievement award from UN Habitat in 2008 and another international award from ESRI in the same year.

“We have updated 70 indicators and produced 14 new indicators in light of the 9th Five-Year Development Plan and Strategic Plan for Jeddah, bringing the total number of indicators to 125,” he added.

JUO is the first urban observatory in the Kingdom and one of the first in the world that was developed using the Geographic Information System. The GIS enables the organization to observe the urban and socio-economic development processes in Jeddah in a better way, hence it enables taking the right decisions to solve the observed problems.