ABU DHABI // Policymakers have been urged to provide more support for new parents, including greater entitlement to maternity and paternity leave and time off work to care for a sick child.
Experts say such changes are essential to strengthen the family unit, promote parenthood and increase the number of skilled women in the workplace.
“We have to do everything we can do to secure the development and well-being of children,” Johanna Lammi-Taskula, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland, told a conference in the capital.
She said progress could be made on government support services, benefits for couples becoming parents and workplace leave schemes that focus on family.
In Finland, parents receive maternity grants, child benefits for children under 17 and child home care allowances.
“The main focus of family policy is work-family reconciliation. Supporting working motherhood and emphasising caring fatherhood are the two important aspects of work-family reconciliation policy,” Ms Lammi-Taskula said.
“As a result of this kind of family policy, the employment rate of women in Finland is high. In 2011, 75 per cent of mothers with children under 18 were employed outside the home.”
Mohammed Saeed Al Neyadi, a strategic planning and development consultant at the Family Development Foundation in Abu Dhabi, said institutions could play a role in promoting parenthood.
“Caring for children is a very difficult task, whether it’s for the mother or father,” he said. “Institutions can help parents care for their children by providing support, programmes and services, even after school.
“For example, some organisations have designated rooms especially for children. They should try and provide services that will help a mother and father better care for their children.
“If the mother is reassured that her children are fine, it will benefit her personally and in her work life.”
Mr Al Neyadi said there was a need to “change the mindset of institutions, to help new mothers and fathers.
“When a mother stops working, we are losing a skill and experience, and it will affect the institution negatively. The country will benefit from working women.”
Nancy Merheb, a researcher at the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, hoped the views expressed at the conference would influence policymakers.
“I think what is important is that decision and policymakers take advantage of this in order to shape policies that already exist in the UAE,” she said. Although the UAE had policies on maternal leave and paternal leave, these could be amended to be of greater benefit to parents.
“The father is allowed three days’ paternity leave, which, in my opinion, is too little. A father cannot support the mother within three days,” she said.
Ahmad Al Ghoraibe, strategic planning and institutional development adviser at the council, said the conference should be a stepping stone to developing existing policies.
“It was a great chance to hear and learn from the experiences of Scandinavian countries, which are number one in matters of childhood and motherhood,” he said.
“We are now in the phase of preparing a strategy for the Supreme Council. We are preparing policies and procedures that can maybe give the Supreme Council advice on policies pertaining to motherhood and childhood.”
This month Sharjah’s Executive Council ruled that expatriate mothers should have 60 days’ maternity leave, which has led to calls for greater support for new parents.
Women working for the government are entitled to 60 days’ maternity leave, and those in the private sector to 45 days. Fathers have three days of paternity leave.
Members of the Federal National Council argued last year that existing maternity leave was inadequate.
dmoukhallati@thenational.ae
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
