Overview
- UAE officials reported that the 'tashfeer' zero‑bureaucracy programme has removed more than 10,500 unnecessary procedures and simplified over 4,300 redundant requirements, producing savings of over AED 4 billion and freeing about 42 million hours for users.
- The government has begun a third cycle of the programme and set a target to move roughly 50% of sectors, operations and services to AI‑assistant models within two years, with plans to redesign services rather than only add AI tools.
- Dubai Culture launched the first cohort of 20 fellows for its Global Cultural Policy programme, partnered with the Global Forum of Cultural Cities, Oxford and Aspen to train urban cultural policymakers ahead of the World Cities Cultural Summit in Tokyo.
- KHDA formalized three advisory education councils made up of 46 students, parents and educators to feed stakeholder views into Dubai’s Education Strategy 2033, and other initiatives include prison‑to‑farm vocational training and expanded cultural forums.
- Independent UN, World Bank and UNCTAD assessments warn Gaza faces catastrophic damage with direct losses estimated at about $35.2 billion and an overall reconstruction and recovery bill above $71.4 billion, while only a small fraction of pledged donor funds has been delivered.