Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development, stressed that the directives of the UAE wise leadership in the year of the 50th and COVID 19 pandemic recovery year promotes the vision of improving wellbeing and community; thus, stimulates overcoming challenges and achievements within the next 50 years to achieve the goals of the UAE 2071 centennial.
Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development, stressed that the directives of the UAE wise leadership in the year of the 50th and COVID 19 pandemic recovery year promotes the vision of improving wellbeing and community; thus, stimulates overcoming challenges and achievements within the next 50 years to achieve the goals of the UAE 2071 centennial. Her Excellency noted that centenary, noting that wellbeing will remain the priority of UAE government agenda since it is the supporting, influential and effective element of excellence and performance of different sectors all over the UAE to achieve the best results and indicators.
This was announced by Her Excellency after chairing the first meeting of the Wellbeing Council for the current year 2021, which was held remotely to review the World Happiness Report 2021 and participated by a number of officials from relevant federal and government authorities to happiness and wellbeing sector as well as executive councils. The wellbeing council is a platform to promote government coordination and integration and achieve the UAE leadership directives in this regard.
The agenda of the Wellbeing Council meeting highlighted the national wellbeing strategic plan 2031, the Council's road map for the current year, and the mechanism for monitoring the implementation and marketing the wellbeing initiatives.
During the meeting, the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Center reviewed the results of the 2021 World Happiness Report of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network Initiative entitled "Knowledge for Prosperity", based on the Gallup Global Survey on the assessment of people’s wellbeing and happiness on a scale of (0) to (10) degrees. This year's report is exceptional due to the circumstances of COVID-19 pandemic.
The Gallup Global Report also showed a rise of (7,37) rate in the level of living satisfaction among UAE citizens in 2020 compared to (6,74) during 2019.
Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid instructed the members of the Wellbeing Council all over the UAE to put an improvement plan that enhances the UAE's progress in the global living satisfaction index, and achieves the UAE government's vision of providing the best wellbeing for the community through initiatives and projects that serve all the members of the of society, citizens and residents alike, and by focusing on areas including economic security, social networking, mental health and physical health. Her Excellency also announced the appointment of Ammar Al Muaini as the Secretary General of the Wellbeing Council and chair of the executive team of the council.
About the latest development in the wellbeing national strategic plan 2031, Her Excellency Hessa Buhumaid, stressed the importance of updating the objectives to keep pace with the current circumstances and the repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic and achieve the aspirations, strategies and visions of the UAE wise leadership towards recovery during the next phase.
The objectives of the strategic plan include three basic objectives with 13 detailed pillars: first: "Achieve an advanced country and sustainable cities that support wellbeing and livelihood to lead proactive development and opportunities” second: "build strong and cohesive families in a coherent community with values of tolerance, giving and community participation", and third: "encourage individuals with active, positive, meaningful and responsible healthy lives".
The goals of the first pillar of the national wellbeing strategy include: economic and social development that creates opportunities and enhances living standards, ensuring flexible and reliable government systems and services, designing and developing facilities, infrastructure, housing and transportation systems that support wellbeing, promoting lifestyles and practices that contribute to the preservation of the environment and natural resources to ensure sustainability for present and future generations, and encourage cultural and recreational wellbeing supporting activities.
The goals of the second pillar of the national wellbeing strategy include: promote wellbeing, family cohesion and social relations, encourage the adoption of wellbeing in learning and working environments, promote the values of giving, cooperation, solidarity and community service, promote digital wellbeing, encourage wellbeing and positive purposeful digital communities.
The goals of the third pillar of the national wellbeing strategy include: "Encourage individuals with active, positive, meaningful and responsible lives", “promote a healthy and active lifestyle, enhance good mental health and adopt positive thinking as a core value to build good life skills.
As part of the agenda of this year's wellbeing council meeting, the Council's roadmap will include several initiatives to enrich the community projects and behaviors that support wellbeing, regular meetings, virtual wellbeing seminars, community design wellbeing centers, preparation of the annual wellbeing initiatives report, and preparation for the national wellbeing survey 2022.
Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid directed the members of the Wellbeing to prepare a marketing plan to circulate the wellbeing initiatives and achieve the best positive results among the community Her Excellency also recommended to form sub-committees distributed all over the UAE to ensure the implementation of these initiatives and achieve the desired goals.
It is noted that the Ministry of Community Development and Wellbeing Council has been chaired by Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid, Minister of Community Development and organized on December 2020, the first virtual wellbeing Forum which has been highly participated by (10) government authorities and more than 30,000 viewers on social media channels.
The Community Design Centers are one of the key pillars of the National Wellbeing Strategy aiming at enabling individuals to design their lives in partnership with government authorities and the private sector.