UAE residents are more worried about road safety than the risk of unemployment, serious illness or crime, a major poll has revealed.
Twenty-eight per cent of the 1,000 surveyed for the World Risk Poll 2024, from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation global safety charity, cited road accidents as their biggest safety issue.
Economic risks, such as job losses, concerned 13 per cent of respondents, while major health issues were cited by eight per cent. Another five per cent were worried about crime or violence. Less serious health concerns such as exhaustion or a fall made four per cent anxious.
The survey's findings – based on nearly 147,000 interviews in 142 countries by the polling firm Gallup – was released on Friday in a report, What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm.
Road safety
Despite significant improvements in UAE accident statistics, residents still find road safety the most concerning issue.
“Driving is still erratic here. It’s the lack of road culture,” said Thomas Edelmann, managing director of Road Safety UAE. He described road safety as “a daily concern” in the country.
“I’m not surprised people are concerned … more needs to be done,” he added. “On every single trip, you have to watch your back. There are multiple situations where drivers show erratic behaviour without any respect for others.”
Mr Edelmann noted that the number of road accident deaths fell two-thirds to 352 in 2023 from 1,072 in 2008.
“A lot of credit has to go to the authorities,” he said. “The rules have been improved … the road infrastructure has expanded dramatically over the years. Data sources out there claim that the UAE has one of the best, if not absolutely the best, infrastructure in the world.
“The government can only do so much. They can only give us the proper laws, the proper roads, the enforcement, the proper infrastructure, but people behind the wheel, motorists, pedestrians, everyone who uses the roads has to contribute. They have to display a caring attitude and work with each other.”
Road accidents topped the poll globally at 16 per cent, with 76 per cent of adults expressing concern about being seriously hurt in a road accident. Crime or violence was named by 13 per cent, followed by a personal health condition at 11 per cent, the economy at seven per cent and climate change or severe weather events at six per cent.
“Since the World Risk Poll began in 2019, people around the world have named road-related accidents as the greatest risk to their safety every time,” Nancy Hey, director of evidence and insight at the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said in a statement. “Even amid major global upheavals, including the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and economic and cost-of-living crises, people continue to feel most threatened by risk from everyday transportation.”
The World Risk Poll found the highest proportion of people who had suffered serious harm in a road accident was in South Asia, at 16 per cent, with South-east Asia second, at 12 per cent.
Little concern over climate change
In the UAE, the poll found that 38 per cent of residents – the third-highest figure in the world – are unconcerned about climate change, despite the country experiencing some of the world’s hottest temperatures.
In several other Middle Eastern countries substantial minorities said climate change was not a threat, including in Saudi Arabia (46 per cent, the highest figure in the world), Israel (the fourth-highest figure globally, at 36 per cent), Iraq (fifth, at 33 per cent), Bahrain (seventh, at 30 per cent) and Jordan (eighth, at 28 per cent).
Prof Michael Mason, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics, said that many people in Gulf states may be unconcerned about climate change because these “relatively well-off” nations could” insulate their populations … from the adverse effects of climate change”.
“It could be there's an awareness there, but there's a confidence in the government to protect them,” he said. The heavy urbanisation in the Gulf could be another factor, because many effects of climate change are felt by farmers practising rain-fuelled agriculture, according to Prof Mason.
In some Arab nations there are “more immediate, even existential threats” that he said would tend to crowd out concern about climate change. There is likely to be a generational divide, Prof Mason said, with younger people in the region probably more concerned than older generations about climate change.
In a 2022 report, Greenpeace Research Laboratories, based at the University of Exeter in the UK, warned that the Middle East and North Africa region was warming twice as fast as the world as a whole, with average temperatures rising by about 0.4C per decade. Previous research has indicated that in the Middle East, concern about climate change “isn’t as high” as in some other regions, said Lorraine Whitmarsh, professor of environmental psychology at the University of Bath in the UK.
“It could be they have strong vested interests in maintaining the status quo and not moving away from fossil fuels,” she added. Work that Prof Whitmarsh has been involved with found that experiencing flooding – which is becoming more common because of global warming – did not make people more worried about climate change. “It was the media that had the bigger impact. It was mediated information rather than their direct experience,” she said, adding that government inaction on global warming also increased “climate anxiety”.
Watch: UAE hit by worst flooding on record in April 2024
How England have scored their set-piece goals in Russia
Three Penalties
v Panama, Group Stage (Harry Kane)
v Panama, Group Stage (Kane)
v Colombia, Last 16 (Kane)
Four Corners
v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via John Stones header, from Ashley Young corner)
v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via Harry Maguire header, from Kieran Trippier corner)
v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, header, from Trippier corner)
v Sweden, Quarter-Final (Maguire, header, from Young corner)
One Free-Kick
v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, via Jordan Henderson, Kane header, and Raheem Sterling, from Tripper free-kick)
Bert van Marwijk factfile
Born: May 19 1952
Place of birth: Deventer, Netherlands
Playing position: Midfielder
Teams managed:
1998-2000 Fortuna Sittard
2000-2004 Feyenoord
2004-2006 Borussia Dortmund
2007-2008 Feyenoord
2008-2012 Netherlands
2013-2014 Hamburg
2015-2017 Saudi Arabia
2018 Australia
Major honours (manager):
2001/02 Uefa Cup, Feyenoord
2007/08 KNVB Cup, Feyenoord
World Cup runner-up, Netherlands
UAE squad
Ali Kashief, Salem Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout, Omar Abdelrahman, Mohammed Al Attas (Al Jazira), Mohmmed Al Shamsi, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammad Barghash, Khalil Al Hammadi (Al Wahda), Khalid Eisa, Mohammed Shakir, Ahmed Barman, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Adel Al Hosani, Al Hassan Saleh, Majid Suroor (Sharjah), Waleed Abbas, Ismail Al Hammadi, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli Dubai) Habib Fardan, Tariq Ahmed, Mohammed Al Akbari (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmeen (Al Wasl), Hassan Al Mahrami (Baniyas)
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
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What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Arabian Gulf League fixtures:
Friday:
- Emirates v Hatta, 5.15pm
- Al Wahda v Al Dhafra, 5.25pm
- Al Ain v Shabab Al Ahli Dubai, 8.15pm
Saturday:
- Dibba v Ajman, 5.15pm
- Sharjah v Al Wasl, 5.20pm
- Al Jazira v Al Nasr, 8.15pm
