GDRFA participates in City Builders Initiative

The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (GDRFA-Dubai) stated that it is participating in the City Builders Initiative of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council in Dubai along with a number of participating teams to significantly improve joint government services. The initiative falls in line with the directives of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, to work on improving joint government services by applying the creative design methodology for services. The list of services that the Department is currently working on improving in cooperation with several government entities includes the residency permit service, which aims to improve the customer journey and reduce the number of steps in obtaining an integrated service to complete the residence permit application. Another one is the service to facilitate procedures for the deceased individuals’ relatives. This humanitarian service by the government meets the needs of bereaved families starting from the moment of death throughout the procedures that follow related to burial or repatriation of the bodies to their home countries. This service offers significant relief to the deceased individuals’ relatives and alleviates the burden on them while mourning the loss of a loved one. Yet another service that is being worked on is the ideal home service, which provides an ideal and happy home environment by applying the best standards of sustainability, public safety and indoor air quality. Government services in free zones such as residency in free zones are also being improved, thus enhancing the status of free zones as attractive destinations for foreign investment. This service is characterized by ease and speed of procedures and obtaining a residence within 5 working days. Meanwhile, the traveller trip service provides the necessary equipment to Tesla cars to enable transportation and collection of boarding passes for travellers. The list also includes the marriage service, which is a joint government service for citizens and residents of Dubai to facilitate marriage procedures by providing an online platform that provides all information to users, starting from the medical examination and ending with updating users’ data in the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship. Major General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, Director General, GDRFA-Dubai, affirmed that the Department is keen to activate the City Builders Initiative, which is one of the initiatives adopted by the Emirate to improve joint government services to facilitate the work of government sectors. The initiative enhances Dubai’s position as one of the most important cities in the world in the fields of leadership and excellence. He underlined that this fruitful cooperation between various government entities in Dubai contributes greatly to launching an innovative concept of services provided to customers, thereby consolidating the values of teamwork and overcoming challenges to raise the level of quality and efficiency of government work. Al Marri added that the directorate is one of the vital government sectors in Dubai, which has a prominent role in the work of everything related to residency and nationality procedures. He added that the Directorate has achieved tangible successes year after year in continuous improvement processes and is upgrading its services in order to enhance customer satisfaction and happiness. Col Abdul Samad Hussain Sulaiman, Deputy Assistant Director for leadership and Future Affairs, said that the Directorate is continuously working with the initiatives launched by the UAE government for the public sector and the Dubai government in particular. He added that the City Builders initiative is considered one of the pioneering initiatives at the government level that aims to promote joint cooperation between government entities and the improvement of joint services offered by them. These include integrated service packages that ensure a unique experience and happiness for customers, in line with the leadership’s vision to provide innovative services that exceed their expectations. Captain Maryam Taeb Abdullah, Director of Operations Management Department at GDRFA- Dubai, stated that the City Builders initiative has several stages, including preparation and information gathering and sharing ideas among the participating teams from each government entities, followed by discussions and the designing of the customer journey, identification of challenges that each service may face and then the implementation and follow-up phase. In the follow-up phase, each working group of the participating teams follows up the customer journey in all respects, according to the Dubai Model methodology for improving government services and implementing the City Builders Guide. Captain Teab pointed out that these initiatives contribute to simplifying government services procedures and reducing the number of steps for the customer, thus helping to achieve their happiness. In addition, it reduces the use of paper in line with the Dubai strategy for paperless transactions to ensure that Dubai is 100% paperless by 2021. It also contributes to raising the quality of service and productivity and time of completion of the transaction. He noted that some services that used to take more than a week in the past now take 1 to 5 working days only.