Jahiz, which means “Ready” in Arabic, is a disruptive talent development initiative launched by the UAE Government to enhance the readiness of all federal government talents with skills for the future. It was designed as a proactive measure to respond to those challenges, spearhead the development of federal government employees, and enhance their resilience and preparedness for the future.

Launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum UAE Vice President, Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai in November 2022, Jahiz delivers its mandate through a customized digital platform that houses a variety of virtual modules and masterclasses dedicated to over 53,000 UAE government employees.
As far as government development and upskilling programs go, Jahiz is unmatched in scale and scope.

To date, more than 1,220,000 hours of learning have been completed, and 26 skills of the future were covered through 157 modules and 15 masterclasses. In January 2024, Jahiz was selected among the top 9 global projects featured in the World Economic Forum's global report, “Building a Resilient Tomorrow”, and received the “Best L&D Technology Implementation” Award at the 2023 Future Workplace Awards.

http://jahiz.gov.ae

• United Arab Emirates

• Youth
• All employees of the UAE's federal government, specific groups of the local government, and other select strategic partner entities

Jahiz started at the federal level and is now being scaled to cover local governments in the UAE. To date, agreements have been signed to include local governments of Fujairah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaima, and Sharjah. At the global government level, Jahiz content is being used through the UAE Government Experience Exchange Program, which is a knowledge-sharing platform aiming to transfer the UAE’s experience and best practices in the field of government development and modernization to other countries. The program was launched in 2018 by the UAE’s Prime Minister’s Office at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs. Since the program’s launch, the UAE government has signed agreements with over 28 countries and has trained over 28 million government employees in 65 areas of cooperation.

Furthermore, we have shared select Jahiz content globally through the Microsoft Public Sector Center of Expertise platform, which aims to help public sector organizations on their digital transformation journeys.

We have also onboarded 1,000 youth members from the community, the private sector, and the Higher Collages of Technology, the largest higher education institution in the UAE, renowned for its leadership in applied and technological education.

Jahiz is a digitally delivered initiative that is both environment-friendly and scalable. We've ensured leveraging digital technologies to reach a wider group of employees while minimizing the impact on the environment. Jahiz also dedicates multiple learning journeys on the platform to learning about sustainability-related topics such as climate change, net zero, circular economy, new economic models, and sustainability through digital transformation.

Jahiz is aligned with the WSIS goal of achieving a common vision, desire, and commitment to building a people-centric, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilize, and share information. In addition to the learning offered to employees around sustainability and UN-related missions, we've also hosted a briefing event titled "Designing a Sustainable Future" for leaders of the UAE government to shed light on the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, which was hosted in the UAE for the first time. This event aimed to raise awareness about the UAE's sustainability vision and climate change trends, highlight the UAE’s efforts in hosting COP28 and its commitment to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, encourage government leaders to take concrete steps towards sustainable development in critical sectors and facilitate communication and knowledge sharing between more than 300 UAE government leaders to enhance the integration of sustainability efforts. The platform is also utilized to support the sustainability efforts of the UAE. For example, 2023 was the Year of Sustainability in the UAE. To this end, Jahiz provided us the opportunity to add an extra learning path dedicated to sustainability and COP28. These included learning about responsible consumption, ESG, digital sustainability, and the circular economy Jahiz also helps raise awareness globally and supports building global partnerships and alliances. For example, during COP28, along with one of the content partners of Jahiz, Apolitical, we hosted a roundtable "Building Climate Capable Governments” on the sidelines of the event in Dubai. The overall objective of the session was to get governments to commit to scaling climate and nature training and build governments capable of driving climate action. The session saw ministers, mayors, and public sector leaders from around the world making ambitious pledges to build “climate-capable governments.”