Dubai: The closure of a US-funded organisation in Dubai on Wednesday will have no serious effects on the institute's regional work, an official from the organisation told Gulf News yesterday.
According to reports, the UAE last week closed down the Dubai office of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), an organisation affiliated with the American Democratic Party that claims to "work to promote and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide."
"On Wednesday, March 28, authorities [not sure from where] visited the office and told us our licence was cancelled, effective immediately — no reason given," Leslie Campbell, NDI regional director of Middle East and North Africa, told Gulf News via e-mail.
Having operated in Dubai for almost four years, Campbell said the NDI office's operations were geared outside the emirate.
"We do not have any programmes in the UAE and never have. Our office was simply a regional hub which supported programmes in places like Qatar and Kuwait. The Gulf countries are too small to support a lot of separate offices so a central, easy-to-access location made sense and Dubai has been a good place to work from," Campbell said.
An analyst based in Dubai, who requested anonymity, told Gulf News these sort of organisations cannot be considered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) because they are funded by western governments and major parties in the US and Europe. "For me, they have suspicious goals," he added without giving further details.
— With inputs from agencies
