Planning Minister urges local councils to align development projects with the National Spatial Plan

Minister of National Planning, Housing and Infrastructure Mohamed Aslam has called on local councils to align the proposed development projects with the National Spatial Plan.

Speaking at the ceremony held to launch the training programme for local councils on formulating development and financial plans under the new Decentralisation Act, Minister Aslam noted 40% of the Maldivian population live in Male’ City, with this percentage expected to increase in the coming years considering the rate at which the capital is being populated. As such, the minister said the population of Male’ could exceed the population of the rest of the country by 2040. Therefore, he said long term plans must be developed to control the congestion in Male’.

Speaking further, the planning minister urged local councils to align their development projects with the National Spatial Plan developed by the government. The minister noted the National Spatial Plan distributes the country into three main development regions, each of which would be distributed into a further six zones which would consist of 20-island clusters. He said the implementation of the Integrated National Public Ferry Network would provide an effective link between and within the development zones, boosting the development efforts of each zone.

The training on the formulation of development and financial plans is being conducted jointly the Local Government Authority (LGA) and International Republican Institute (IRI) Maldives. All newly elected councilors, as well as members of the women’s development committees have been invited to the training programme. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the programme is being held online.