LONDON: Digital transformation, while crucial, is insufficient for driving true modernization in governance, Maryam Al Hammadi, the UAE’s minister of state and secretary-general of the UAE Cabinet, told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
Speaking on a panel titled “Governments Rewired,” Al Hammadi emphasized that digital initiatives must be paired with sweeping regulatory reforms to ensure nations remain competitive and appealing to global talent.
She said: “We need to attract talents, we need to attract entrepreneurs, so we need them to be living in the UAE.
“It’s not about attracting them alone, but actually to make them live in the UAE. And that’s why we have to do massive reform in our regulations, in all aspects.”
Al Hammadi cited the UAE’s introduction of specialized courts operating in English as an example of such reforms. She argued that without updating regulatory frameworks, countries risked widening bureaucratic gaps as technology and industries evolved, discouraging both investment and talent retention.
She added: “In four years, 80 percent of the federal laws in the UAE have been changed, more than 40 laws in the UAE have been rebuilt and 30 new laws introduced.” She said that 99 percent of government services had been digitally transformed.
Al Hammadi highlighted that the rapid pace of technological advance had significantly elevated expectations, making modernization not a “luxury” but a “necessity” for governments to remain relevant, competitive, and effective.
Artificial intelligence and its potential to bridge global divides dominated discussions both on and off the forum’s panels. While many speakers championed AI’s ability to foster development, concerns about growing protectionism and restricted access to the technology persisted.
Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, highlighted the importance of adopting a decentralized and agile approach to AI governance.
He said: “What I sometimes find intriguing is that the AI narrative of Davos is sometimes somewhat removed from the narrative that I hear in the rest of the world.”
He pointed out that much of AI’s foundational research had been publicly funded, emphasizing the role of governments in shaping AI’s trajectory.
“We often pretend that all of this is just a commercial and business value proposition. Actually, much of the fundamental research is publicly funded,” Steiner said, stressing the critical role of governments in fostering innovation.
He further argued that while fundamental research helped to lay the groundwork, the real challenge was at the other end — how these applications could drive entirely new economic trajectories, create markets, and establish platforms.
Steiner stressed the importance of governments striking a balance between being “enablers and regulators” in this process, adding: “Society leads technology, and not always technology leads society.”
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that while technological advance presented a concrete opportunity to “transform,” how “government understands, masters and harnesses the technology revolution is the single biggest thing for government to get its head around today.”
He added: “This is the challenge, both for the developed world and the developing world.”
