The 10th World Government Summit (WGS) would center on six significant themes with the goal of bettering people’s lives all around the world. Speaking at a press conference held on Sunday, Her Excellency Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Happiness and Wellbeing, Vice Chair of the World Government Summit Organisation, said that the there are six pillars of this year’s WGS: “There are other events held on the side-lines like ministerial meetings and 7 awards. We hope that the WGS continues to be a forum for all governments of the world to put in place strategies to improve the lives of people around the world,” she said.
The World Government Summit (WGS) has brought together decision-makers and leaders to try to predict what the needs of the future are. According to His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications and Managing Director of the WGS, some countries come to listen, while others come to act.
“In 2018, we heard Dr. Tedros, the secretary general of the world health organisation, speak about the pandemic. The next year, we created a forum to discuss how countries eradicate and overcome plagues and pandemics that might spread. This has played a role in the UAE’s effort in overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
He said that every speech held during the WGS sessions over the last 10 years is translated into an action plan for the UAE and for any other country that chooses to embrace it. “We also have a lot of programs to try to ensure that the knowledge transfer happens to all governments regardless of their challenges,” he said.
The chairman of the board of executive directors of the Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai, Mattar Al Tayer, Commissioner General for Infrastructure, Urban Planning and Well-Being Pillar, spoke at the conference about a topic on his WGS agenda: self-driven cars and the difficulties that the industry will face in implementing them, according to Zawya.
“There are international challenges when it comes to the future of transportation such as the infrastructure, updating maps, traffic lights, legislations, safety and people’s acceptance for self-driven cars as well as the technology related to cameras,” he said. Locally, he said that high temperatures and humidity have an impact on the transportation systems for self-driven automobiles, but that this year, Dubai would introduce ten self-driven cruise cabs. “We will be the first city in the world, outside the US to operate them,” he said.
As the UAE is currently planning the COP28 event later this year, its Director General Majid Al-Suwaidi said that WGS is an important contributor towards the success of the event. “It is an important platform that brings governments and stakeholders together to have conversations about climate change and how to address the challenges that we face. We believe that WGS is an important venue to deliver progress,” he said.
Clean energy is the main focus of the energy sector’s plan for the WGS, according to Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA. “All future projects in the country are based on clean energy. The Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park is the largest single-site solar park in the world, with a planned capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030. So far, we have 2027 MW – this means that 14% of the energy in Dubai is solar,” he said, including that energy storage is a challenge in the GCC. He stated that as part of the shift to clean energy achieving net-zero by 2050, DEAW would discuss what it brings to COP28 as well as the many clean and renewable energy projects it regularly implements.
Sustainability was emphasized as being at the center of the Dubai Municipality’s policy by Dawoud Al Hajri, Director General. “We aim to have a waste-free city in Dubai,” he said, citing examples such as recycling water for irrigation and planting 180,000 trees annually.
“One of the main themes of the World Government Summit 2023 is the sustainability of cities, which highlights the importance of providing resources towards rapid urbanisation. This aligns with the plans of Dubai Municipality in designing smart cities based on a human-centred approach, and environment friendly building through the 3D printing technology,” he said. The WGS looks toward the future and bridges gaps between the difficulties and discovering possibilities, according to Eng. Omar Al Mahmoud, CEO ICTFUND, TDRA.
