Abu Dhabi: Tens of thousands of extra seats for students, doubling housing loans and thousands of new housing units are among the first phase of the Abu Dhabi Accelerators programme, the executive committee in charge of the programme announced on Monday.
The Executive Committee of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi announced the details of 10 community development initiatives of the Abu Dhabi Government Accelerators Programme ‘Ghadan 21’ (Tomorrow 21), which fall under three tracks: education and employment, housing and communities and social support services.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, earlier this month approved a three-year Dh50 billion budget for the programme.
“Dh20 billion will be allocated to the 2019 development package,” Shaikh Mohammad said.
‘Ghadan 21’ will focus on four main tenets: business and investment, society, knowledge and innovation and lifestyle.
As part of its efforts to secure and provide employment opportunities for citizens, the government of Abu Dhabi has developed a sustainable job creation system aimed at creating job opportunities, qualifying and training job seekers, addressing challenges through activation of replacement plans and building strategic partnerships with the private sector in terms of Emiratisation.
As for initiatives in the education sector, six private partnership schools with a total capacity of 15,000 seats will be launched and 15,000 seats added to other schools catering to all segments of society over the next three years.
These initiatives in the education sector will ensure the expansion of the absorptive capacity of cost-competitive education facilities for all segments of society while maintaining the high quality of education outputs, increasing the opportunities offered and encouraging the private sector to inject more investment into the education sector.
The public schools programme will also be reduced Dh20,000 per student per year.
In line with the decision to double the number of approved housing loans to citizens to 5,000 loans annually, the government has also increased the offer of housing units. The Abu Dhabi real estate market will be supplied with 15,000 housing units over the next three years. Some 2,500 units have already been completed and obtained the necessary approvals, while another 2,500 units are expected to be approved before the end of this year.
An amount Dh3 billion allocated for the development of the main community facilities in Khalifa City, Mohammad Bin Zayed City, Shakhbout City and Madinat Zayed is also being dispensed.
A social investment fund will be created to serve projects that have a clear impact on the development of social services in the emirate.
It will seek to create opportunities for volunteering which will contribute to the development and strengthening of the social fabric of the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
The Social Support Authority’s mandate includes providing financial and non-financial support to eligible families in the emirate to ensure a decent life and develop programmes in collaboration with strategic partners to enable families to help them achieve financial independence. The first programme is expected to be launched during the first quarter of next year.
