Over 120 initiatives for 30 national pillars were launched today at the UAE government annual meetings, in the presence of over 450 government officials.

Below is the list of pillars, including examples of the key initiatives launched at the meetings.

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 standardising 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.

Foreign aid: 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 actors 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.