UAE Prime Minister

Key Achievements

UAE Government Strategy

The UAE Government Strategy, announced in April 2007, aims at achieving sustainable development and maintaining high standards of living. The strategy is divided into six major areas covering 21 subjects pertinent to the development and prosperity of the UAE.

The strategy, announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, marks a new beginning for government sector performance in the UAE. It embodies key principles, most important of which is enhancing the level of government provided services to UAE nationals and expatriates, and in unifying efforts within a common framework that focuses on the people of this nation.

In his speech, Shaikh Mohammed said, “The strategy has been developed in line with the vision of His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the National Program he launched in December 2005. Therefore, the strategy's objectives concur with those of the National Program that focus on achieving sustainable and balanced development and a high quality of life for all UAE nationals.”

The UAE government strategy which comprises 21 topics under six major sectors follows a number of general principles: Maintain continuous cooperation between federal and local authorities; Revitalize the regulatory and policy making role of the ministries, and improve decision-making mechanisms; Increase the efficiency of governmental bodies, and upgrade the level of services based on customer needs; Develop civil service regulations and human resources, focusing on competence, effective Emiratisation and leadership training; Empower ministries to manage their activities in line with public and joint policies; Review and upgrade legislations and regulations.

Those principles will be underlined by developing coordinated strategies for all federal ministries, building effective government performance systems and implementing the subsequent initiatives within the six major sectors of the UAE government strategy: social development, economic development, public sector development, justice and safety, infrastructure and rural development.

Social Development: The social development sector includes pre-university education, higher education and scientific research, healthcare, population and labour force, social welfare and development, and, culture, youth and community development. The major directions of public policies in education aim at maximizing the student and school performance levels, in compliance with society's expectations, increasing the quality of performance of public and private schools, ensuring the quality of public and private academic program, expanding the role of higher education institutions to meet community requirements and graduating qualified nationals to compete for opportunities in the job market.

Healthcare sector:In the healthcare sector, the strategy focuses on developing organizational, legislative and legal frameworks based on international best practices to upgrade and improve the private and public sector health services. In addition, quality control systems will be applied to public hospitals, in parallel with the development of the primary health care units. The strategy also covers training of medical professionals and enhancing Emiratisation program in this key sector.

Economic Development: The government strategy has formulated certain public policies designed to stimulate economic growth, strengthen the competitiveness of the national economy, increase participation of UAE nationals and upgrade the legislative and regulatory framework to match current and expected economic growth. Additionally, the strategy emphasizes the government's role in developing comprehensive training program for UAE nationals to increase their competitiveness in the labor market and promote entrepreneurship among young UAE nationals so that they launch and manage small and medium sized enterprises.

Government Sector Development: The strategy focuses on four elements pertinent to the development of the country’s government sector. They are strategic planning and build an integrated performance management system; upgrading the civil service system, developing government services based on international best practices and promoting a culture of excellence in service delivery and strengthening the e-government programs through adopting a new approach to and encouraging private sector participation in delivering central services.

Justice and Safety: The major goals set by the government strategy for the judicial system focus to achieve the necessary leap in the system. Main initiatives include developing the needed regulations to entrench the principles of transparency, raising the standards of judicial staff, encouraging the recruitment of qualified UAE nationals and implementing international best practices.

The recommendations include: implementing the most advanced IT programmes to improve judicial records management, amending judicial procedure texts to ensure prompt and efficient judgments, translating regulations and legislations into English, activating the role of the Institute for Judicial Training and Studies and develop partnerships with renowned international judicial institutes and focus on information technology, commercial and financial oriented training.

Infrastructure: Recommendations for the infrastructure sector include regulating the different areas within this sector, strengthen policy making in respective ministries and enhancing coordination with the local entities.

An integrated framework to manage water resources and increase the effectiveness of water and electricity usage should be built. In addition to launching widespread awareness campaigns, encouraging the participation of the private sector in promoting the use of renewable energy.'

Rural Areas: The strategy for developing the rural areas stresses the importance of investment in human resources development, improving living conditions and providing quality basic services. The strategy also recommends forming a ministerial council for rural areas development, with the responsibilities of planning and supervising projects. It also recommends establishing local committees to identify local needs and to facilitate the implementation of development plans.