Falah Mohammed Al Ahbabi is a member of Abu Dhabi Executive Council
October 13, 2022
Across the globe, governments are adopting digitalisation in order to provide residents with user-friendly government services and simultaneously reduce their costs.
The digital transformation of institutions at various levels of government has been accelerated by a multitude of factors, including increasing expectations for convenient access to government services, a growing need to manage service delivery costs and the inability to serve stakeholders efficiently with physical delivery channels.
It is a time of unprecedented change for governments, with population dynamics shifting and budgets reeling from Covid-19 and, in some cases, even ageing infrastructure. Since 2020, Covid-19 has compelled governments, businesses and residents to restructure their daily lives and has brought numerous challenges to government authorities. Governments can overcome these problems while increasing services by digitalising their operations.
By digitising procedures and services, governments can assure sustained, safe operations during any crisis while providing services to residents with several benefits. Thanks to digital services, government institutions can deliver information and services on any device or platform whenever and wherever they are needed.
By efficiently managing digital change, governments can provide their residents with a world-class quality of life, revitalise public trust and increase their countries' competitiveness. As a result, they will be better prepared to deal with future disruptions.
Smart cities combine data, resources, infrastructure and people to continually improve liveability and provide residents and visitors with a quality of life that anticipates their needs and desires.
Employees save considerable time using digital procedures, allowing them to take on new responsibilities resulting in lower costs. A wide range of accessibility options is available, from online digital payment options that allow residents to pay service fees promptly to permit applications that can be submitted electronically and processed quickly.
It is also through accessibility that communities can achieve resilience. Business continuity is guaranteed when records and documents are saved digitally in the cloud rather than on a local server or paper.
At the end of the day, providing accessibility to residents increases efficiency, productivity and cost savings. Government entities will significantly improve operations, budgets, and services by discontinuing paper-based processes and obsolete single-use software and instead investing in a unified, cloud-based platform.
Data can be an essential strategic asset for generating public value in developing, implementing and monitoring public policy. Government entities must use data-based decision-making processes to achieve strategic goals to produce better results, improve efficiency and increase responsiveness.
Abu Dhabi hosted the Smart Cities Summit in 2021 to reshape visions of future smart cities. Mona Al Marzooqi / The National
Smart cities combine data, resources, infrastructure and people to continually improve liveability
Data-led approaches have the potential to build self-governing societal capacities for resilience and adaptation. Government entities taking steps in this direction will result in sustainable success for all, and data-driven governance is increasingly beneficial to empowering communities and building capacity.
As a result of digitalisation, government entities can leverage the digital infrastructure built for digital governance. Consequently, they can support more agile and anticipatory decisions for their residents in an uncertain economic environment.
Creating a digital infrastructure linked to the Internet of Things (IoT) can provide unique opportunities to systematically address difficulties related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to create an equitable, environmentally sustainable and healthy society.
Developing and deploying smart technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques can be critical to ensuring sustainable economic growth and achieving the SDGs.
Autonomous and shared vehicles, adaptive traffic signals and data-driven last-mile mobility solutions will be hallmarks of future mobility networks. With smart mobility, governments can reduce traffic congestion, improve road safety, protect the environment, improve transportation accessibility and affordability, and promote economic growth, while improving quality of life for their residents.
The Department of Municipalities and Transport hosted the Abu Dhabi Smart Cities Summit in 2021 to reshape visions of future smart cities and strengthen Abu Dhabi's pioneering experience in anticipating city developments. The summit brought together government officials, policymakers, smart city and technology pioneers.
Developing a smart city is fundamental to moving the city towards a sustainable future through collaborative efforts. We are continuing with the collaborations forged to ensure the summit's outcomes are implemented.
Smart infrastructure offers a way to harness the latest technologies to obtain maximum value and efficiency and create resilience and sustainability.
To meet residents' needs, DMT has worked extensively to transform municipal services into digital services. It also aligns with Abu Dhabi's vision of improving services and responding to sustainable development needs by delivering modern services to meet customer expectations.
By digitising our services, we ensure the quality and efficiency of our services and improve our residents' quality of life. It also seeks to promote community relations, foster an innovative work environment, increase performance and coordination, and develop measurement and assessment capacities.
In line with this objective, DMT and its affiliated entities recently transferred all their digital services to Abu Dhabi's unified government system, TAMM, which is managed and overseen by Abu Dhabi Digital Authority. It will allow DMT to provide faster, more efficient, and high-quality government services from multiple sectors while lowering the time and effort necessary to conduct transactions, making it easier for users to access services.
Through the Abu Dhabi Digital Twin project, launched at Gitex 2022, Abu Dhabi's physical assets can be updated in real-time, creating an immersive data and visual experience. Using a comprehensive visualisation of infrastructure assets, decision-makers can gain new insights and make better decisions. In addition, it will enable forecasting models to respond to and recover from emergencies, enhancing infrastructure, mobility, and safety in public areas and strengthening the emirate’s resilience.
At Gitex, we highlighted our efforts to develop an effective and sustainable mobility system with self-driving technology and integrate AI into our Intelligence Monitoring Vehicle to deploy a full range of intelligent analytics applications as well as local and remote video surveillance capability to assess road quality, city distortions, sign board quality, and city cleanliness.
Leveraging digital technology, governments must transform their services to establish seamless governance. It is imperative that they continuously improve their digital service platforms to provide integrated services and introduce cost-effective platforms for scalability. The implementation of these measures can help governments deliver quality services that attract international businesses and investments.
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
The government has taken an increasingly tough line against companies that fail to pay employees on time. Three years ago, the Cabinet passed a decree allowing the government to halt the granting of work permits to companies with wage backlogs.
If wages are 10 days late, the new measures kick in and the company is alerted it is in breach of labour rules. If wages remain unpaid for a total of 16 days, the authorities can cancel work permits, effectively shutting off operations. Fines of up to Dh5,000 per unpaid employee follow after 60 days.
Despite those measures, late payments remain an issue, particularly in the construction sector. Smaller contractors, such as electrical, plumbing and fit-out businesses, often blame the bigger companies that hire them for wages being late.
The authorities have urged employees to report their companies at the labour ministry or Tawafuq service centres — there are 15 in Abu Dhabi.
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
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.”
Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
Despacito's dominance in numbers
Released: 2017
Peak chart position: No.1 in more than 47 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Lebanon
Views: 5.3 billion on YouTube
Sales: With 10 million downloads in the US, Despacito became the first Latin single to receive Diamond sales certification
Streams: 1.3 billion combined audio and video by the end of 2017, making it the biggest digital hit of the year.
Awards: 17, including Record of the Year at last year’s prestigious Latin Grammy Awards, as well as five Billboard Music Awards
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Dominic Bess, James Bracey, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Ben Foakes, Lewis Gregory, Keaton Jennings, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Jamie Overton, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Amar Virdi, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023 More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Race card
1.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 50,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
2pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 84,000 (D) 1,400m
2.30pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 60,000 (D) 1,200m
3pm: Conditions (TB) Dh 100,000 (D) 1.950m
3.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 76,000 (D) 1,800m
4pm: Maiden (TB) Dh 60,000 (D) 1,600m
4.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 68,000 (D) 1,000m
Results
6.30pm: Madjani Stakes Group 2 (PA) Dh97,500 (Dirt) 1,900m, Winner: RB Frynchh Dude, Pat Cosgrave (jockey), Helal Al Alawi (trainer)
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (D) 1,400m, Winner: Mnasek, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson.
7.40pm: Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Grand Dubai, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
The flights Flydubai offers three daily direct flights to Sarajevo and, from June, a daily flight from Thessaloniki from Dubai. A return flight costs from Dhs1,905 including taxes. The trip
The Travel Scientists are the organisers of the Balkan Ride and several other rallies around the world. The 2018 running of this particular adventure will take place from August 3-11, once again starting in Sarajevo and ending a week later in Thessaloniki. If you’re driving your own vehicle, then entry start from €880 (Dhs 3,900) per person including all accommodation along the route. Contact the Travel Scientists if you wish to hire one of their vehicles.
AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
