Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development, has stated that the wellbeing of human beings and society is a priority and a sustainable task on the government's agenda based on the attention and support of the leadership of the UAE.

The leadership sees such wellbeing as the basis for its vision and plans, and the focus of its development trends and initiatives in achieving the goals of the UAE 2071.

This was announced by Minister of Community Development after chairing the second meeting of the Happiness and Wellbeing Council held remotely and attended by 22 government officials from 21 federal, local and executive councils nationwide who participated to review the wellbeing life conditions in the country.

In its second meeting, the Council discussed a report on the wellbeing status and most important aspects affecting wellbeing in society, as well as the development of a comprehensive government action plan at all wellbeing strategic sectors based on the set-up and implementation of policies, projects and initiatives to find solutions for all challenges raised by the wellbeing conditions report.

More than 200 government officials participated in an integrated government workshop, to present the detailed results of the report for all federal and local government authorities and involve them in the steps to be reflected on the ground.

The current action plan focuses on distributing council members to executive teams that facilitate the tasks in various sectors such as education, health, housing and wellbeing life quality in the society, strengthening social ties. Later the action mechanism of each team and its achievements and initiatives will be unified through development efforts, she added.

Buhumaid also emphasised that the results will be monitored and presented in a report to the Ministerial Development Council later. She also mentioned the happiness and wellbeing meter which includes a national survey for happiness and wellbeing to include practices, questionnaires and studies at both levels in local and federal authorities.

She said they had asked the Federal Authority for Competitiveness and Statistics, to link these results to local and global performance indicators in this field, since the performance indicators are permanently followed up by the Prime Minister’s Office.

She also pointed out the importance of achieving balance and integration between the UAE Happiness and Wellbeing Council and the Digital Wellbeing Council to achieve the development goals aspired by the UAE leadership towards the 2017 Centennial.

The Happiness and Wellbeing Council Meeting reviewed the results of the national survey for happiness and wellbeing covering 15 years old categories and above with a total of 10,000 respondents from all emirates, including young people, students, senior Emiratis, people of determination, retirees, unemployed Emiratis, housewives and working females, who answered 300 questions during January and February 2020.

The report included national happiness and wellbeing index representing 49.7 percent of the developed countries’ indicators such as a booming economy, government services, cities and residential communities, environmental sustainability and culture and arts; indicators of a 22 percent interconnected society highlighted family, community, work and studying, giving and welfare and digital life, while individual wellbeing quality indicators 28.3 percent included lifestyle, mental health, feelings and self-realisation and life skills, all these factors together influence individual wellbeing.

The report stipulated a set of steps that constitute a mechanism for the Happiness and Wellbeing Council and acts as a roadmap for all appointed CEO’s for happiness and wellbeing at all federal and local government authorities: sending happiness and wellbeing status reports to all government authorities, studying reports and identifying the most important areas of development to address the challenges, as well as proposing policies and programmes that can be worked on.

The proposed initiatives included a revision of how government authorities review and share their efforts in happiness and wellbeing and how to build a database related to the subject, while the happiness and wellbeing meter is one of the strategic initiatives of the national happiness and wellbeing charter approved by the Cabinet.

The report concluded with a set of recommendations and a working mechanism for the executive teams such as the distribution of executive team members and sub-committee members according to study and examine the wellbeing sectors; assigning executive team members and sub-committee members to prepare a wellbeing report and submit supporting plans and initiatives over a specified period, in addition to reviewing the national happiness and wellbeing strategy 2031 following the repercussions of COVID 19 and presenting the results at the next meeting of the Happiness and Wellbeing Council.

News Source: http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302864595