ADM ups strategic partners' satisfaction to 83%, signs 15 MoU last year

28 February 2017

Abu Dhabi City Municipality – THE Abu Dhabi City Municipality has made a remarkable increase in strategic partners’ satisfaction about the existing agreements thanks to the improvements carried out by the Municipality aimed to bolster cooperation with partners, leverage the scale of municipal services to measure up with partner’s aspirations and meet the requirements of sustainable development in Abu Dhabi. The achievement reflects the Municipality’s keenness to establish integrated relations with strategic partners & stakeholders. The Municipality has a dedicated entity entrusted with supervising the relations with partners (Strategic Planning Division -Strategic Planning & Performance Management Sector), which has developed an integrated plan to forge relations with partners, meet their needs and overcome challenges to realize the vision of Abu Dhabi prudent government.

The Municipality has made 72 partnerships and signed Memoranda of Understanding & twinning agreements with strategic partners, who are classified as either key partner, strategic partner or supportive partner.

The Municipality is keen to broaden the partnership with the public and private sectors with a view to finding the best methods to tackle all challenges, particularly those relating to ​​sustainable development. The Municipality is keen to benchmark these methods with various projects, and adopt the best practices in finding out solutions to these challenges to complete the development project. The Municipality is also keen on realizing the objectives and the vision of our shrewd government and building sustainable relations based on trust, cooperation, and knowledge sharing with a view to surmounting difficulties that might crop up during the business process.

The Municipality signed 15 Memoranda of Understanding with strategic partners, last year, and the overall satisfaction rating of partners with the municipality as a strategic partner reached 78%. Moreover, the Municipality has established e-link with 22 public entities.

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Regarding the actions taken by the Municipality in 2014 and 2015 to bolster strategic partnerships, the Municipality has activated communication with partners, improved partner relations management, discussed the best practices as well as partner relations management in place with the municipal system, and improved processes associated with partner relations management. Basing on this, the Municipality has developed and adopted a partner relations management policy, improved, standardized and adopted partner relations management processes, including the mechanisms of identifying partners’ identity, and analyzing these relationships. The Municipality has drafted a partner relations management plan, partners communication plan, agreements preparation mechanisms and partnerships evaluation, implemented agreements activation mechanism, and monitored partnerships’ added value. It has also organized annual forums and meetings with partners from public and private sectors in order to enhance communication, discuss the challenges in place, and make improvements based on questionnaires and satisfaction surveys. The civic body has also introduced a mechanism to follow up the implementation of current and future projects with all government institutions associated with the 2030 government plan (emergency plan), and adopted the unified government services project which is currently being implemented. These services are made public either through partner forums where as many as 50 e-services are on offer by municipal employees to 8 public institutions, or through events & training programs held jointly with partners, besides establishing the e-link with inter alia, Abu Dhabi Statistics Center, and Abu Dhabi Distribution Company, and honoring outstanding partners and fostering cooperative ties.

To further strengthen its relations with strategic partners, the Municipality has organized scores of forums and workshops such as co-organizing the Strategic Partners and Suppliers Forum 2014 at the municipal system level, organizing Abu Dhabi City Municipality Partners Forum of Consultants, Contractors & Suppliers 2014, organizing Dhabi City Municipality Partners Forum of Consultants, Contractors & Suppliers 2015, organizing a workshop for managing procurement roads, and HSE in cooperation with contractors, organizing a workshop for managing procurement roads, and HSE in cooperation with consultants, conducting 3 workshops for managing urban planning in cooperation with developers, and delivering a strategic partners’ workshop about traffic safety in cooperation with the International Road Federation (IRF). The Municipality has also activated the summer training program in cooperation with the universities, and organized awareness raising workshops & training sessions in cooperation with the Health Authority, Civil Defense and Environment Authority. The civic body has also participated in the Asia Pacific Cities Summit (APCS) as well as the Mayors’ Forum – Brisbane Australia 2015, and received of local, regional and international delegations with the aim of sharing knowledge and promoting communication.

Thanks to this policy and improvement procedures, the Municipality has received many awards in partner relations highlighted by Minister of Interior Award for Excellence – the Ideal Partner Category, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the UAE University on the sidelines of the Students Summer Training Program.

The Municipality stated that it is bound by agreements with Abu Dhabi Educational Council, Department of Economic Development, Abu Dhabi Airports, Du, Follow up and Control Center, Transco, Statistics Center, Federal Council of Demographic Composition, Etihad Rail, ACTVET, Etisalat, Abu Dhabi Housing Authority, Tabreed, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Department of Finance, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi Ports, ADNOC, Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services, Abu Dhabi Distribution Company, and Emirates Identity Authority.

Achievements made by the Municipality in 2016 in the field of communication with partners to enhance the integration included publicizing the developments between the Municipality and partners through the social media with the aim of communicating with the community. It also included the sharing of expertise and best practices with local and international partners, holding the annual forum with the partners of the Municipality from the private sector and holding coordinative meetings with 15 strategic partners to discuss plans for improving the existing relationships. It also included holding workshops with strategic partners to overcome difficulties experienced by municipal inspectors, and holding workshops for sharing plans and strategies with partners with the aim of implementing the government agenda.

The Municipality has also carried out an analysis for partners of Abu Dhabi City Municipality to identify their effect and the effect of the Municipality to identify the points of strength and weakness as well as the requirements of improving the relationship in the public interest. Annual plans will also be issued for managing partners relations and communicating with partners and to follow up their implementation (about 93% of the partners relations management plan 2016 has been achieved). The implementation rate of improvement areas in the follow up report of Abu Dhabi Excellence Awards has reached 100%. Workshops are being held to explain the real estate law in partnership with developers, and agreements have been made with several banks. Cooperative channels have been opened with 45 public and private entities representing public & private libraries in holding Emirates Libraries Symposium under the theme: The Role of Libraries in Promoting Reading in the UAE Community.

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© Press Release 2017