Over 120 initiatives for 30 national pillars were launched yesterday at the UAE government annual meetings, in the presence of over 450 government officials.
The series of wide ranging initiatives will ensure the prosperity of the UAE for future generations.
Here is the full list:
Social services
Three initiatives, including one dedicated to providing family counselling services that seek to provide families with the tools to achieve happiness. These services will include, but are not limited to, social, psychological and financial counselling.
Laws and legislation
Five initiatives, including the launch of an annual agenda for legislations in the UAE, in order to coordinate all efforts to achieve the national agenda goals, in accordance with various priorities set across several pillars.
The environment
Three initiatives, including the development of an integrated national programme to address challenges in the face of climate change and ensure the flexibility of the economic and social development processes in response to climate change in the medium and long term.
Health and prevention services
Two initiatives, including developing an integrated national birth and death registry, linked to a smart data system. The registry will collect and link information through a national electronic programme, registering births and deaths from the concerned health authorities, and analysing them to formulate health policies and develop national health indicators.
Youth services
Four initiatives. One, titled Youth Echoes, is an annual report that seeks to collect the thoughts and feedback of young people on various national matters and to share them with the relevant decision-makers and officials in order to make the voices of the youth heard. The report will also analyse and measure the overall national perspectives of young citizens.
Energy
Seven initiatives, including one dedicated to studying how various countries around the world source and utilise natural gas in order to recommend and implement the most appropriate regulatory regime for the UAE’s natural gas market.
Local education- Emirati School
Four initiatives, including one dedicated to standardizing public and private schools’ educational models, in accordance with the highest international curricula, in order to set a new and consistent academic standard for all schools in the UAE.
Higher education and scientific research
Three initiatives, One of which, titled national standards for quality assurance of higher education institutions, includes standardising academic requirements to develop a higher-quality education system, such as licensing all higher education institutions and accrediting all higher education academic programmes.
The economy
Six initiatives, including implementing national initiatives that promote non-oil foreign trade by facilitating trade, national exports and imports and e-commerce.
Financial policy
Four initiatives, including liquidity management and developing local loan systems that support investment and projects, and providing new government financing instruments that can facilitate government and private sector access to liquidity for project financing.
Science, Technology and Innovation
Three initiatives, including the Emirates Smart Data Centre, a large-scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform dedicated to the strategic analysis of data in order to provide information to better integrate efforts between government, private and academic-sector institutions.
Governmental human resources
Six initiatives, one of which is the Future Skills Study, which seeks to analyse and forecast future trends, then align with academic institutions to offer the necessary requirements in order to prepare young generations for the future.
Government leadership and capacity
Three initiatives, one of which is developing a framework for Emirati leaders, and introducing a database of national leaders and their competencies, mapped to the objectives of the UAE government.
Media
Three initiatives. One example is that leading media institutions will collaborate with academic institutions in order to provide competitive educational programmes focused on the needs and best practices of the media industry.
Smart services
Five smart services initiatives, for example, identifying and implementing blockchain services, and aligning these with existing government frameworks and strategies.
Development of services
Three initiatives, including a programme dedicated to ensuring that the UAE government becomes the best globally in government services by 2020, including a specific scope of work with the necessary steps to achieve this goal.
Infrastructure and housing
Three initiatives, including a comprehensive plan for the UAE that aims to establish and implement a national consensus for the UAE’s infrastructure including roads, housing, construction and supporting urban planning, land use and population, considering economic, environmental and social forecasts. The national policy for the comprehensive planning of the state will be launched in 2018.
National data and statistics
Four initiatives. One example is the national data portal, developing a smart platform with all data and statistics related to the national agenda in one place, so it may support decision-makers and officials by making all pertinent national data and statistics easily accessible.
Government excellence and efficiency
Five initiatives. One of these is the national excellence diploma, which will offer academic training for specialists. This will launch in 2018 in a number of UAE universities. It will include a focus on several specialisations, focusing on important issues such as the fourth industrial revolution.
The justice system
Five new initiatives, including a programme where one notary public can have jurisdiction to operate across the whole country and in all emirates. The unified notary public project mechanisms and legislative amendments will be announced in 2018.
External aid
4 initiatives were launched.The UAE is a global leader in humanitarianism and four new initiatives are being undertaken. One of these is the UAE Humanitarian Support Team (UAE FAST), dedicated to assessing external emergencies and providing support to those in need at times of emergency. The dedicated team of UAE humanitarian staff will also asses the stages of reconstruction and development following the provision of immediate relief.
Municipalities
Four initiatives, including the national waste database, which will be used to record quantities of waste, processing, and types of waste from across the country, in order to create a holistic, dynamic and graphical assessment of the UAE’s waste management.
Emiratisation
Three new initiatives. One of these is the Qualitative Emiratisation Programme, a programme that seeks to empower Emiratis to work in important positions in the private sector through partnerships with companies, mapping skills to jobs and building a long term vision for capacity building through tailoring education to the needs of the private sector.
Security and safety
Four initiatives, including the development of road management, operation and control systems to enhance the security capabilities facing the region, considering future expectations of increased traffic. Road security will be enhanced with smart towers installed on roads in all emirates. These will monitor and regulate traffic, quickly reporting traffic violations but also acting as road network management monitoring resources.
Competitiveness
Four initiatives. One of these, the Stimulating Investment Programme, aims to develop a national framework to promote foreign investment in various sectors and economic opportunities, including applying and launching a law governing Foreign Direct Investment.
Tolerance and happiness
As achieving tolerant and happy communities is a national priority in the UAE, four new initiatives to support this goal were launched, including collaborating with media institutions to promote happiness and tolerance through dialogue, positive messaging and community inclusion.
Gender balance
Three initiatives were announced, one of which is preparing legislation that addresses the gaps in gender balance in policy and proposes new legislation, such as equal pay, maternity leave - including in the military - and granting rights to deceased female employees, in order to achieve the gender balance goals of the national agenda.
Culture
Four initiatives, including a smart mobile app initiative by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development. The app will be an interactive tool designed to encourage people to participate in various cultural activities around the country. People who download the app will receive access to the most important cultural facilities and sites, as well as integrating a calendar of events that sends notifications of upcoming events, and engaging messages that inspire people to engage.
The Kingfisher Secret
Anonymous, Penguin Books
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Brief scores:
Liverpool 3
Mane 24', Shaqiri 73', 80'
Manchester United 1
Lingard 33'
Man of the Match: Fabinho (Liverpool)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
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.”
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
BACK%20TO%20ALEXANDRIA
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20IPHONE%2015%20PRO%20MAX
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Company%C2%A0profile
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