{"id":47885,"date":"2023-09-29T19:54:30","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T15:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=47885"},"modified":"2023-09-29T19:54:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T15:54:32","slug":"mubadala-investing-in-abu-dhabis-cultural-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/mubadala-investing-in-abu-dhabis-cultural-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Mubadala investing in Abu Dhabi\u2019s cultural sector?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DCT Abu Dhabi and Mubadala Foundation have signed an agreement for the latter to pump AED 50 million (around $13.6m) into the emirate\u2019s cultural sector over the next five years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is described as \u201ca first-of-its-kind agreement\u201d and \u201ca step forward in their shared mission to transform and elevate the emirate\u2019s vast cultural landscape\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are very few actual details of what the cash injection involves \u2013 there\u2019s grand talk of \u201ca commitment to fostering cultural programmes and initiatives\u201d and there will be projects (content unspecified) with Louvre Abu Dhabi and the forthcoming Zayed National Museum. Mubadala Foundation has also being appointed as an Education & Community Partner of DCT Abu Dhabi across the culture sector \u201cincluding the Saadiyat Cultural District and other similar sites\u201d, but we have no idea what that involves either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve been picking through the announcement for some implications, though. For one, it could be that the money won\u2019t go very far beyond the two museums. The press release quotes Homaid Al Shimmari, Mubadala\u2019s Deputy Group CEO, as saying \u201cBy working together alongside Louvre Abu Dhabi and Zayed National Museum we will promote our cultural heritage to position Abu Dhabi as an international hub for sustainable tourism and culture … We are committed to playing a key role in contributing to Abu Dhabi\u2019s arts and culture ecosystem to drive impactful change locally and globally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere there\u2019s mention of \u201cinitiatives focusing on education, community outreach, youth, senior citizens, Emiratisation and more\u201d. So we\u2019d expect Mubadala Foundation to be funding programmes that drive community engagement and education, all laudable and indeed vital elements of a modern cultural institution like the two museums \u2013 particularly if Abu Dhabi\u2019s cultural agenda is going to benefit (and that would surely be one result of promoting an enhanced appreciation of the emirate\u2019s cultural position to the local community).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mubadala is of course one of Abu Dhabi\u2019s sovereign wealth funds, charged with investing a chunk of the emirate\u2019s wealth (and making money from it); currently Mubadala has something like AED 1,015bn \u2013 say $276bn \u2013 in assets. Mubadala Foundation seems to be a formal approach to developing a CSR strategy; early this year Mubadala was advertising for a senior VP to run the Foundation, which was described as having as its goal \u201cthe creation of a strong, sustainable, and innovative CSR ecosystem in Abu Dhabi, the UAE and international markets where Mubadala operates, through the development of comprehensive and integrated CSR programs \u2026\u201d Clearly investing in initiatives for the local community is on message for CSR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansour Al Ketbi, Executive Director of Digital and Corporate Services, seems to have responsibility for the Foundation at the moment, alongside a number of other corporate services divisions that he runs. He\u2019s been quoted as saying \u201cMubadala Foundation manages all philanthropic and community-related initiatives at Mubadala and partners with like-minded organisations to drive positive change in communities across the UAE and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far the only other joint initiative we know of is the MoU signed with NYUAD a couple of weeks ago. This should result in joint research projects \u201cthat help advance the credibility and opportunities of the academic sector in Abu Dhabi\u201d; there\u2019s also talk of cooperation on student recruitment programmes, local and global student internships, and a Student Outreach Program that engages high school students in STEM fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DCT Abu Dhabi and Mubadala Foundation have signed an agreement for the latter to pump AED 50 million (around $13.6m) into the emirate\u2019s cultural sector over the next five years. This is described as \u201ca first-of-its-kind agreement\u201d and \u201ca step [… more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-museums"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}