In her address on Monday to the 3rd Committee of the UN General Assembly during the 62nd session to discuss a social development item, Ayesha Ali Al Mansoori, member of the UAE delegation, said the social situation of more than half of the population of the world continues to lack the basic requirements of living with dignity.
“Poverty, diseases, unemployment, illiteracy, organised crime and armed conflicts still form major challenges to the achievement of our aspirations to create a human society where people enjoy security, stability and prosperity. In this regard, and as we commend the efforts made by the UN and its organs in the area of social development in its multifaceted aspects, urge for doubling international efforts to implement the outcome of conferences on social development in order to fulfil our peoples aspirations to create a safe human society fit for all,” she stated.
She said the UAE continues to fulfil its commitments to achieve the hoped-for social development and enhance the standard of living for human beings on both national and global level, through the dedication of needed financial and human resources, and effective contribution in the global partnership to create a human society where individuals enjoy peace, security and prosperity.
“The latest demonstration of this commitment was recently manifested by launching the Dubai Cares to provide in its first stage primary education for more than one million children across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, as a major step to eradicate poverty,” she noted.
She pointed out that the UAE, on the national level, had launched this year a government strategy which is the first binding business process re-engineering program for governmental performance.
She said the strategy has its core focus on ensuring country wide sustainable development and a high quality of life for the population, in line with the United Nations efforts to promote human development, adding that to achieve the above mentioned goals, the UAE government had provided free education at all levels including higher education universities, colleges, and technical institutes, in order to prepare young men and women for professions and jobs to meet the demands of the national development plans.
“In the mean time, officials developed and updated schools’ curriculums to meet the changing needs of the labour market while deepening the role of higher educational institutes in fulfilling the needs of the society.
“National mechanisms were established to develop human resources and coordinate between the requirements of development, the work market and human resources,” she explained.
She also pointed out that the UAE continues to work to enhance health services to an international standard and had succeeded in lowering infant mortality and postpartum deaths to lowest levels, according to international standards.
“We also succeeded in eliminating a number of dangerous diseases, such as polio and malaria and limiting the spread of HIV to a very small number with no new cases since the discovery of the disease,” she stated.
On general economic indices, she said the UAE had achieved noticeable progress in almost all development indices which was reflected on all aspects of human development in the society such as reflected in the continuing growth of income per capita, and the increase in the government expenditure on education, health, social services and social security programmes.
“This was accompanied with a high enrolment rate in elementary schools reaching 87 for both sexes a quick decrease in illiteracy rates and a growing rate of women’s participation in the work force and decision making process.
“Women now represent 22.4 of the work force in all sectors and during the last two years, two women were assigned as ministers for both ministries of economy and planning and social affairs,” she noted.
Touching on her country’s commitment to the principles of international human laws, she said the UAE had issued in recent time new laws to protect the human rights of both the nationals and expatriates in the country. “Some of these laws are related to children jockeys, human trafficking and working hours for labourers and domestic helpers.’’
