Dubai: A unique initiative was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Saturday to measure the public’s happiness and satisfaction with government services presented to them on a daily basis through the distribution of electronic devices in all government departments linked directly to a central data base that monitors this index and sends daily reports to decision makers.

These in turn will observe and monitor the happiest and most content geographic locations and government departments regarding government services, to develop services and improve the public’s satisfaction and happiness with the offered services.

Shaikh Mohammad commented on the new government initiative by saying that “waiting for the reports of the proportion of public satisfaction with government services on an annual or quarterly basis does not meet our ambitions, because the world today is changing rapidly, and people’s expectations are also changing rapidly and must be monitored on a daily basis”.

He added that the development and change of services is a daily task and its impact on people’s happiness is real and that is why they have named the new initiative “happiness index” and this index shall be monitored daily through daily field reports.

The new initiative is part of a package of initiatives and strategies towards a shift to Smart government and Smart city with the aim of using technology and its applications to increase the effectiveness of government performance and its contribution to the happiness of the community.

During the launch of the initiative, Shaikh Mohammad stressed that “the aim of all our initiatives is people’s happiness and satisfaction and to make their lives easier and providing them with short cuts that assist them in preserving their time and energy”.

He added that “through this new initiative we want to measure all that and follow it up on a daily basis. Today, we shall start with government departments and our goal is that the private sector will be included soon to develop the experience of a distinguished and high quality life for nationals and residents alike, in addition to visitors to evaluate their visit experience to Dubai immediately”.

Dubai is the first city universally to apply a daily index to measure the happiness of the public regarding services provided to them through all government departments through smart and highly developed systems that also provide daily reports to decision-makers across all levels.

The results of the index will be built on the quality of data obtained through smart applications where service recipients are given three options to determine the extent of happiness experienced through the received service.

This application will be available at the point of receiving the service or across smart or virtual platforms that provide the service through e- web and will be applied to the happiness index gradually to include all government departments over the next year.

The second phase of the project will include its application in selected sectors of the private sector to enrich the experience of visitors and tourists and determine the extent of their satisfaction with the experience of the city of Dubai immediately and across all points where they may receive services.