The UAE is known as a land of opportunities, enterprise and wisdom, where the happiness of the people tops the list of priorities for the leadership.

Government organisations are constantly encouraged to adopt the best practices, improve the quality of services and embody the country’s vision to spread happiness and positivity across all sectors, as well as to achieve the highest levels of excellence.

The zeal with which the 2019 Government of Dubai Customer Happiness and Mystery Shopper Index surveys was undertaken reveals the confidence as well as the earnestness with which the authorities strive to uphold quality of services and make lives easier for the people.

The surveys are part of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme, which evaluates the service quality of various government entities.

Such surveys are beneficial, as they help motivate every organisation to strive for excellence.

As suggested by Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, all government entities should use the lessons learned from the survey to improve customer happiness levels.

As he stated: “The average Customer Happiness level achieved was 85.2%, Our goal is to reach 100%. A government led by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum should demonstrate exceptional service and settle for nothing less than top rankings across all indicators.”

In September 2019, Sheikh Hamdan had said on his Twitter account that the results of the Customer Happiness Index and mystery shopper findings would be revealed with full transparency.

By keeping his word, he has proved that Dubai always matches words with deeds.

The Dubai Government Excellence Programme has been assessing customer satisfaction in government entities for more than 16 years.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (score of 90.1%), Roads and Transport Authority (89.3%) and the Dubai Health Authority (88.6%) have every reason to celebrate as they walked away with the top ranking scores.

In 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution that calls for viewing happiness as a holistic approach to development.

The UAE moved fast in making happiness a reality for its people. Persistent attempts are made in varied ways to achieve such a goal.

For example, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, has announced the opening of registration for the UAE Hackathon “Data for Happiness and Wellbeing” edition, organised in cooperation with the National Programme for Happiness and Wellbeing, within the activities of the UAE Innovation Month next February, in all the emirates of the country.

The TRA published the registration link on the hackathon website (https://hackathon.ae), inviting those wishing to participate to guarantee their places in the hackathon according to the emirate in which they reside or wish to participate in.

The UAE Hackathon aims to develop innovative solutions and ideas that contribute to enhancing the wellbeing and raising the happiness meter of the UAE.

As well explained by Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, TRA Director-General, “We live in an era that requires a lot of innovation and creativity to achieve goals. As for the UAE, which has set pioneering and leading goals for itself, smartly dealing with modern tools and concepts helps foresee and make the future in a way that achieves happiness and wellbeing. This is the essence of the hackathon project, where hundreds of teams representing different segments of society, gather and analyse the data available to reach solutions to challenges in many areas such as smart cities, health, education, and others.”