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Our value is what we add to life: Mohammed

Dubai - Shaikh Mohammed launches region's largest initiative to help 130m people

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A new foundation that consolidates the work of 28 organisations focusing on fighting poverty and illness, spreading knowledge and culture, empowering the community, and driving innovation has been launched in Dubai.
The foundation will implement over 1,400 human development programmes in more than 116 countries around the world.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced the launch of the foundation on Sunday. The foundation will be called the 'Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives'.
Shaikh 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.
"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 programmes on the Arab region. It will also launch the largest and most comprehensive development programme in the Arab region focusing on human development in an integrated manner.
The programme will cover everything from providing the basic human needs from health, fighting illiteracy and poverty, to providing knowledge, dissemination of culture and 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.
"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," said Shaikh Mohammed.

Primary goals
The primary basic goals of the foundation focusses on four main sectors: Fighting poverty; dissemination of knowledge; community empowerment and innovation for the future.

How the foundation will work The foundation will be managed by a board of trustees, which includes representatives of all the organisations brought together by the foundation. It will be chaired by Shaikh Mohammed. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives foundation includes all programmes, institutions and awards launched by Shaikh Mohammed during the previous years. The initiatives will focus on specific development goals of specific geographic areas, as well as take advantage of available resources optimally. The annual operating budget for the foundation is over Dh1 billion and it will work within 116 countries, focusing mainly on the Arab region. Shaikh Mohammed said: "Humanitarian work and development nowadays have transformed and today's challenges require huge global foundations to contribute in creating real social change. The huge challenges faced by our region require a foundation of a scale that can meet the scale of these challenges. reporters@khaleejtimes.com

The foundation 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 Dh2 billion to establish medical research centres and hospitals in the region.
The initiatives include dedicating Dh500 million for research projects to address the need for concrete solutions to the water shortage issues of the region, a key challenge that will only intensify in decades to come.
Shaikh Mohammed said: "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 Al Maktoum Global Initiatives will continue with its relief work and will empower more than two million families, enabling them to become self-sufficient within the next 10 years. The institution will also support young entrepreneurs in order to provide more than half a million jobs over the next few years.
Focus on Arabic
In the field of spreading knowledge and science, and encouraging the translation of key works into Arabic, the foundation 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. It will also continue promoting a vibrant reading culture among school students.
The foundation will support programmes that aim to see over 500 million books read in the next 10 years across the Arab world. The investment in educational, knowledge and scientific initiatives will total Dh1.5 billion to create real change in this sector.
New inclusive culture
The foundation will work within its overall development strategy on establishing a new culture in societies based on tolerance and civilisational openness. To achieve this goal, the foundation has dedicated more than Dh600 million 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.
Dh150 million will be awarded to encourage creatives, intellectuals and journalists to create cultural discourse that is based on 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.
Innovation
As part of its overall vision to develop the region, the foundation will support innovation and scientists in the region by fostering 5,000 innovators and researchers and will invest more than Dh5.5 billion in building a better, world-standard environment for innovators in the region.
This reflects Shaikh Mohammed's 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 in the coming years.
All of this is part of the institution's comprehensive development vision to contribute towards eradicating unemployment and providing Arab youth with a dignified life, preventing them from being misguided and lured to terrorism.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

UAE has enriched lives of 54m people
Over the past few years, the total amount spent by the organisations affiliated with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Initiatives has surpassed Dh8 billion 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 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. This is 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.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com