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Dubai Turns AI On Its Own Civil Service To Measure Productivity

Five years and millions of data points in, a single framework now tracks how 32 government entities use their people and their money.

Published

4 days ago

August 25, 2026

Nour Nasir

dubai turns ai on its own civil service to measure productivity

Governments have always been obsessed with what they spend. However, Dubai is now attempting to measure what it gets back.

The emirate has deployed a unified Workforce Productivity Measurement System across 32 government entities that’s built on machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence. Formally adopted as a government-wide framework under Executive Council Resolution No. 67 of 2025, it gives every participating department the same method for analyzing the relationship between human and financial resources, government outputs and service outcomes.

The Dubai Government Human Resources Department (DGHR) says the system took five years to develop and draws on millions of data points. Its analytical tools and digital platforms allow entities to monitor productivity indicators and assess how resources are being used, with the resulting data intended to sharpen planning, lift institutional performance and hand policymakers more accurate, forward-looking insight.

The rollout was gradual, with work beginning in 2020 with a pilot across a limited number of entities. Resolution No. 7 of 2023 created the Workforce Productivity Measurement Steering Committee to help develop the methodology and ready departments for wider adoption. With the system now government-wide, that committee has concluded its work.

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“The adoption of the Workforce Productivity Measurement System across the Government of Dubai represents a strategic milestone in the advancement of government work and reflects Dubai’s vision to build a government driven by data and advanced analytics,” says Abdullah Ali Bin Zayed Al Falasi, Director General of DGHR. He adds that the system goes beyond measurement, establishing a unified framework to support resource allocation, improve service quality and strengthen institutional performance.

What the announcement does not yet detail is how productivity is defined for a civil service, which indicators the models weigh, or whether measurement stops at the entity level or reaches individual employee desks.

Related Topics:Artificial Intelligence Dubai

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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 days ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.