UAE set to roll out new happiness survey
Dubai: A first-of-its-kind national survey was launched on Sunday by the Government of the UAE to measure happiness and positivity across the country, identify priorities and sources of happiness for society, as well as create a database of the results to help local and federal government entities to develop legislation, policies, plans and services to achieve happiness for the entire society.
The survey, covering 14,000 people representing various community segments including adults and children above 10-year-old, tourists and visitors, will be implemented in several phases by a specialised team consisting of more than 300 researchers from various nationalities, supervisors and technical assistant who will collect data.
The field teams will visit tourists and gauge their opinions and collect data.A special questionnaire has been designed in a scientific and accurate manner after consultation with global experts and national research centers. The questionnaire includes multiple forms to suit the target categories.
The survey will begin on Monday, December 12 and will cover 14,000 people representing all segments of the society. It will be undertaken in partnership with the Federal Competitive and Statistics Authority, Abu Dhabi Statistics Centre and Dubai Statistics Centre.
The move comes as part of the National Happiness and Positivity Programme’s efforts to provide data necessary for measuring levels of happiness and positivity in the UAE.
The national survey includes eight main themes — happiness and positivity, life assessment, teaching and learning, health, community, culture, environment and infrastructure, government services, and standard of living and work.
Speaking on Sunday to announce the survey, Ohoud Bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Happiness, said the positivity and happiness is a key priority and objective for the UAE government that strives to identify factors influencing the happiness of the society.
The launch of the survey, the Minister of Happiness added, comes as part of the government efforts to develop comprehensive, practical, meticulous indexes and tools that enable government bodies to adopt plans and strategies that ensure the happiness of the society.
Al Roumi said the launch of the survey embodies the directives of the President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan because happiness represents a top priority and sustainable objective.
It is also in line with the vision of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who sees happiness as a measurable thing that features indexes, programmes and studies. Shaikh Mohammad’s vision also sees happiness as something developable and can be linked to a number of values and programmes, the minister further said.
“Through the survey, we seek to measure the happiness and positivity of all segments of the society and identify the sources of happiness for each segment so that the government can introduce new policies, programmes and services and set the UAE’s happiness and positivity framework in the light of the survey’s outcomes”, she added.
“The UAE has practically begun implementing some types of measurement,” she said. “It launched the Happiness Index in federal bodies and conducted the happiness and positivity study in the public sector. The national happiness and positivity survey’s outcomes will make up indications that would help concerned bodies develop their services to ensure the happiness of the society”.
The minster called on all segments included in the survey to cooperate with national survey teams to ensure the success of the survey and the accuracy of the outcome in order to achieve their happiness and bolster the UAE’s international leading role in the field of designing and innovating indexes that measure the development of happiness and positivity, particularly because other international measurements depend mainly on questionnaire that give inaccurate outcomes.
Al Roumi stressed the pivotal role played by various media agencies in highlighting the importance of the national survey and encouraging people to interact and increase the rate of response with survey teams and facilitating their mission to obtain the required results. She call on media to support this national project by promoting public awareness and boosting government projects and initiatives.
Abdullah Nasser Lootah, Director-General of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority said, “We are very pleased with our participation in this national project which is one of the authority’s most important strategies, which is manifested in the deep believe in the importance of partnership between federal and local bodies in utilising national statistics in serving policymakers.”
He pointed out that the survey will help provide accurate and comprehensive data that supports determining the national strategic priorities. He added the work team will ensure that administrative technical and field support is provided to everybody participating in the survey in order to ensure the achievement of its goals.
“We are looking forward to further cooperation with the work team” Lootah added.
Butti Ahmad Al Qubaisi, Director General of the Statistics Centre-Abu Dhabi underlined the centre’s readiness to support the work teams and the importance of collaborative efforts by all statics centres in the country to implement the survey in a manner that directly supports development plans on the federal level and achieving high accurate results to measure happiness and positivity in the community.
He highlighted the importance of statistical work and its central role in providing statistical information required for drawing up plans for comprehensive developments.
“The centre will conduct the survey through collecting, classifying, storing, analysing and providing results to set up a comprehensive national database for all community segments,” he said.
Arif Obaid Al Muhairi, Executive Director of Dubai Statistics Centre, said that the centre pays special importance and priority to the national survey, especially that making Emiratis happy is top on the list of strategic priorities adopted by the UAE government
“We, as a government statics body support predicting future, planning and decision-making because we realise that our role is central in providing information necessary to achieve our ambitions, goals related to happiness as embraced by our wise leadership,” he said.
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