News

Careem Launches Lebanon Aid Drive With WFP

Donations will be matched through in-app giving, food orders, olive oil, and remittances. However, the end date and matching cap have been left unstated.

Published

5 months ago

May 1, 2026

Joanna Melki

careem launches lebanon aid drive with wfp

Careem launched a fundraising campaign with the World Food Program on April 30 to support emergency food assistance in Lebanon, the Dubai-based super app said.

The campaign, called Seeds for Lebanon, routes donations through several Careem services. Customers can give directly through an in-app Donate feature, with Careem stating that 100% of those contributions will go to WFP operations in Lebanon. Through Careem Food, AED 2 from every order at six participating restaurants — The Good Bowl, Wrapped, Sofret Beirut, Oventine by Al Safadi, Al Safadi, and Manoushe Street — will be directed to relief. Careem Quik will donate 100% of profits from Lebanese olive oil purchases, and Careem Pay will waive fees on transfers to Lebanon for the duration of the campaign. Careem also said it will match all donations made through the initiative.

Mudassir Sheikha, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, said the matching arrangement was meant to multiply the impact of every contribution made. Bashar Al Hammami, head of WFP partnerships in the UAE, said working with Careem allowed donations to be converted into food assistance for those in greatest need.

Careem described the launch as an extension of its relief activity beyond Gaza, citing previous donation drives that it said raised more than AED 2.2 million and were tied to nearly 47,500 food orders.

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Several operational details were left unspecified. The announcement did not state when the campaign ends, whether the donation match is capped, which Careem markets can participate, which corridors qualify for zero-fee Careem Pay transfers, or how quickly funds will be passed to WFP. It also did not clarify whether the 100% pledge applies after payment-processing or platform costs, or whether the matching commitment covers only direct in-app donations or extends to restaurant orders and olive oil contributions as well.

Careem, which describes itself as the “Everything App for the Middle East,” said the campaign is live across its platforms. The company says it operates in more than 70 cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

1 day ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.