World Economic Forum selects UAE's initiative 'Jahiz' among top 9 future resilience pioneers

The UAE government initiative "Jahiz,” which was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, in November 2022, was selected among the best global projects featured in the World Economic Forum - WEF’s global report "Building a Resilient Tomorrow” report, which presents the best pioneering and inspiring practices for boosting future resilience.

The "Jahiz” initiative, a national digital platform for empowering federal government talents with future skills, was chosen among more than 1000 public and private sector projects from around the world.

The WEF selected the best 9 projects in 3 main categories that included climate, energy and food; supply chains; and organisational readiness.

The "Jahiz" initiative focuses on building human capital to enhance the UAE government's readiness for the future. The initiative was selected due to its notable achievements since its launch.

To date, it has contributed to up-skilling 50,000 employees from more than 50 government entities, who have obtained over 800,000 badges through one million training hours.

Future skills targeted by the initiative included Data & AI Skills, New Economy Skills, Digital Skills and skills to enhance productivity and accelerate achievement.

Ohood Bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, Chairwoman of the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources, stated that the WEF’s selection of "Jahiz” is considered a global testament of the UAE government’s success in enhancing future readiness.

Embodying the vision of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which focuses on promoting the UAE as a hub of learning and future skills development and leveraging the power of lifelong learning as a core principle for success, Jahiz aims to unlock new opportunities for progress for UAE.

It also resonates with the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum to make sure that government employees are well-prepared for changes and are empowered by modern, advanced skills.

Al Roumi highlighted that the UAE government is keen to cooperate with the private sector through the Jahiz initiative, which exemplifies the best models of cooperation and integration between the public and private sectors in the UAE to enhance people’s readiness for the future.

"We have established partnerships with more than 18 global companies and leading government entities to provide the best expertise and continuous learning experiences in specialised fields in order to build qualitative skills and provide customised educational paths,” she added.

The "Building a Resilient Tomorrow” report was co-authored by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey and Company and published during the WEF annual meetings at Davos.

It highlights the top 9 global inspiring, practical and impactful projects. These initiatives successfully transformed the attempts to shape the future into clear projects for enhancing future resilience.

The report further defines resilience as developing the necessary capabilities to deal with adversity, withstand shocks and continuously adapt and accelerate as disruptions and crises arise over time.

In addition, the report includes a resilience framework for the public and private sectors that encompasses 6 main pillars, such as human capital resilience, for which the "Jahiz” initiative was chosen as a best global practice representing readiness for the future. Other pillars include energy, nutrition and water supply; critical infrastructure and security; fiscal resilience; equitable society and political resilience; and trade dependencies and economic resilience.

The report also presents a framework specific to the private sector, focusing on operational resilience, market position and demand resilience; societal alignment and purpose; digital and technological resilience; organisational resilience; and financial resilience.

For this report, the World Economic Forum analyzed more than 1,000 global public and private sector projects, and invited over 100 organizations to submit their initiatives. The WEF requested details on the projects’ topical relevance, demonstrated impact, partnerships, scalability and sustainability, and quantifiability.

At the end of the evaluation, only 9 projects were selected, 3 of which were from governments: the UAE (organisational readiness), the United States (climate resilience), and Finland (food supply chains resilience in disasters and crises).

The selected resilience practices also included 3 global practices from the United Nations World Food Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and UNICEF, in the fields of food and supply chains, organizational readiness with agricultural land resilience projects, proactive flood risk assessment, and supply chain assessment.

From the private sector, Siemens presented a project on the sustainable generation of energy in remote communities, the Spanish company Iberdrola presented a project on preparing a smart national electricity grid, and Farmerline from Ghana tackled digital resilience in the agricultural sector.

"Jahiz” is a proactive national initiative, developed in partnership between the Government Development and Future Office and the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources, and designed to upskill government employees.

It was launched by the UAE government to enhance federal government employee’s readiness for the future and provide them with the necessary skills needed to deal with future opportunities and disruptions.

It does so through a customised digital platform that houses a variety of virtual modules and masterclasses. Completing the "Jahiz” programme is mandatory for all employees.

WAM