H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and
Ruler of Dubai, announced today the launch of one of the largest
development and community foundations in the Middle East region,
to be called the "Mohammed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives". The new
foundation consolidates the work of 28 organizations focusing on fighting
poverty and illness, spreading knowledge and culture, empowering the community
and driving innovation. Combined, the foundation's initiatives will implement
over 1,400 human development programs in more than 116 countries around the
world.
Commenting
on the launch, Sheikh Mohammed said, "The Arab region is undergoing
massive challenges. We will not turn our backs on our region, we will provide
our support, and bring hope for our youth." He added: "The world
today is facing great challenges on all levels; in terrorism, wars and mass
immigration and the only solution lies in human development which can be
achieved by educating people and helping them build their future."
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al
Maktoum Global Initiatives will target over 130 million people over the coming
years and will focus its programs on the Arab region. It will also launch the largest
comprehensive development program in the Arab region focusing on human
development in an integrated manner starting with providing the basic human
needs from health, fighting illiteracy and poverty through to providing
knowledge, the dissemination of culture and the development of education. It
will work in parallel on developing a new generation of young Arab leaders,
supporting real change in the area of good governance in the region and providing the
largest incubator for Arab innovators, scientists and researchers.
The primary basic goals of the
new foundation were announced, focusing on four main sectors: Fighting Poverty;
Dissemination of Knowledge; Community Empowerment and Innovation for the
Future. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives will work on
supporting and educating 20 million children and on the prevention and
treatment of 30 million people from blindness and eye diseases until 2025. The
foundation will also invest 2 billion dirhams establishing medical research centres
and hospitals in the region. The Initiatives include dedicating 500 million dirhams for research projects to address the
need for concrete solutions to the water shortage issues of the region, a key
challenge which will only intensify in decades to come.
Sheikh Mohammed commented:
"Today we are at the beginning of a new start. My invitation is open to
all countries, international foundations and organizations to participate with
us in bringing new hope for our region."
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al
Maktoum Global Initiatives will continue with its relief work and will empower
more than 2 million families, enabling them to become self-sufficient within
the next ten years. The new institution will also support young entrepreneurs
in order to provide more than half a million jobs over the next few years.
In the field of spreading knowledge and science, and encouraging the
translation movement, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives will work on
printing and distributing more than 10 million books, and the translation of
the top 25,000 titles from various languages to Arabic, as well as continuing
with promoting a vibrant reading culture among school students. The Foundation
will support programmes that aim to see more than 500 million books read
over the next ten years across the Arab world. The investment in educational,
knowledge, and scientific initiatives will total AED 1.5 billion to create real
change in this sector.
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al
Maktoum Global Initiatives will work within its overall development strategy on
establishing a new culture in societies based on tolerance and cultural and
civilization openness. To achieve this goal, the Foundation has dedicated more
than 600 million dirhams to promote a transparent and lively
media dialogue and also to enable communities to live in harmony, away from
extremism, ethnic, religious or sectarian discrimination. AED 150 million will
be awarded to encourage creatives, intellectuals, and journalists to create
cultural discourse that is based in empowering communities, enhancing their
cohesion, and increasing their cultural creativity. The institution will target
over a million participants in awards and forums related to community
empowerment over the next 10 years.
As part of its overall vision to
develop the region, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives will
support innovation and scientists in the region by fostering 5,000 innovators
and researchers and will invest more than 5.5 billion dirhams in building a better, world-standard
environment for innovators in the region. This reflects His Highness' belief
that nations without innovation cease to evolve and build leadership of the
future. The institution will also focus on fostering entrepreneurship by
supporting and nurturing 50,000 young entrepreneurs and supporting the
establishment of new companies that will provide 500,000 job opportunities in
the region during the coming years. All of this is part of the institution's
comprehensive development vision to contribute, even if for just a little bit,
towards eradicating unemployment and providing Arab youth with a dignified
life, preventing them from being misguided and lured to terrorism.
The new foundation will be
managed by a Board of Trustees which includes representatives of all the
organisations brought together by the new Foundation. It will be chaired by
Sheikh Mohammed who confirmed during the launch that "The Arab region is
undergoing massive challenges, and these challenges will continue for decades
to come. We will not turn our backs on our region, we will provide our support,
and bring hope in a better future for our youth."
Sheikh Mohammed said during the
launch, "The world has spent tens of billions on addressing global
challenges. If only a quarter of this amount was spent on development in our
region, we would overcome our challenges and our people could overcome their
difficulties to restore their role in building vibrant societies which
contribute to the development and wellbeing of mankind."
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Global
Initiatives foundation includes all programs, institutions and awards launched
by His Highness during the previous years in preparation for a new era of
humanitarian and global development work where these institutions can focus on
specific development goals of specific geographic areas, as well as take
advantage of available resources optimally. The annual operating budget for the
new Foundation is over one billion dirhams and it will work in general within 116
countries focusing mainly on the Arab region within the coming period.
Sheikh Mohammed commented,
"Humanitarian work and development nowadays have transformed and today's
challenges requires huge global foundations to contribute realistic societal
change. The huge challenges faced by our region require a foundation of a scale
that can meet the scale of these challenges." He added: "With all our
work and initiatives we seek nothing but God's approval. Our true value is
measured by what we add to this life and our true happiness lies in what we
offer to make people happy. God has blessed the UAE with many gifts and we show
our thankfulness with such acts."
Over the past few years the total
amount spent by the organisations affiliated with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al
Maktoum Initiatives has surpassed 8 billion dirhams in over 100 countries. Over 54 million
people have benefited directly from these initiatives, including the
construction or restoration of over 2,000 schools and educational facilities,
education initiatives that have touched over 10 million children and training
programmes that have seen over 400,000 teachers qualified.
In the field of fighting poverty
and illness the organisations affiliated with the new foundation have worked on
the prevention and treatment of 23 million people from blindness as well as
providing more than 81 million vaccines to prevent blindness and eye disease,
in addition to working on the prevention and treatment of 3.6 million children
from intestinal diseases and the construction and support of some 46 hospitals
around the world. They also worked on supporting and providing immediate
humanitarian relief to more than 1.5 million families in 40 countries.
Moreover, the Awards and Forums
held under the new foundation during the past period attracted more than half a
million participants from creators, intellectuals and media. The foundation's
initiatives have touched over 23,000 entrepreneurs as well as 3,000 companies
which together have supported the creation of over 160,000 jobs.
Thousands of young people have
graduated from leadership programs alongside programs held to train leaders in
more than 155 government entities around the world. The new foundation is
planning to double these numbers by making use of the resources available
through the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives.
The foundation's website http://www.almaktouminitiatives.org has further information regarding
future goals, past achievements and the organisations and programmes which will
combine under the Initiatives.
