Today's Edition
SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)
Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, Abu Dhabi Government has launched a new model for the Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance (ADAEP).
The award’s new model aims to empower government entities to embed a culture of excellence and continuous improvement across all aspects of government work, while strengthening collaboration, integration and coordination within a unified, agile and resilient government system.
The new model also evaluates participating entities’ initiatives, projects and programmes against clear criteria through a rigorous multi-stage assessment process, reinforcing the award’s role as a platform for enhancing excellence in government performance, centred on improving quality of life and advancing institutional development across the emirate.
The new model is built on years of accumulated expertise, as well as advanced studies and research, and has been developed within a comprehensive framework aimed at enabling entities to raise their institutional performance through embedding a culture of collaboration and integration across entities, and leverage the latest technological solutions to deliver a sustainable, positive impact across all aspects of community life in the emirate.
In alignment with Abu Dhabi’s vision to expand the adoption of advanced technological solutions, the current ADAEP cycle incorporates AI across each stage of its evaluation process. This is enabled through three key tools: the AI Consultant, the AI Juror and the AI Grand Jury Assistant, all designed to provide precise data analysis and deliver objective, comprehensive insights.
Saif Saeed Ghobash, Secretary General of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and Chairman of the Office of the Crown Prince, said: “Excellence has always been embedded in how Abu Dhabi operates, shaping a culture that consistently raises standards and delivers tangible value to the community.
"The Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance strengthens this foundation through a structured framework that drives united, government-wide impact and ensures sustainable, tangible value for society. By recognising high-performing entities and teams, the award reinforces a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and cross-government collaboration.”
In the current cycle of the award, 37 government entities and 103 initiatives are being assessed by more than 90 local and international experts, alongside a grand jury comprised of distinguished leaders from the public and private sectors, as well as international experts.
There are six awards across two tracks: three excellence awards recognising the highest performing entities (first, second and third place), and three awards recognising collaborative initiatives that highlight partnership and innovation across entities: the Strategic Impact Initiative Award, the Digital and Artificial Intelligence Initiative Award, and the Community and Family Impact Initiative Award.
The multi-layer evaluation framework used to select the winning entities and initiatives includes an independent assessment by specialised experts, supported by AI tools to ensure the accuracy and consistency of results.
The outputs are then reviewed by quality assurance teams, followed by a technical review by the evaluation committee, before being submitted to the grand jury for deliberation and final approval, guaranteeing a comprehensive, independent assessment that reinforces a culture of government excellence and enhances the quality of institutional performance.
Speaking to Aletihad, Nasser Al Rahma, Executive Director of Strategy & Future Sector at Abu Dhabi Executive Office, said three guiding principles set the new model apart. “The first is focusing on public value creation, the second is the introduction of AI, and then the third is human centricity.”
He added that the focus is on public value creation, describing the model as cutting-edge and outcome-driven. Al Rahma stressed that the process is designed to drive continuous improvement and supported by a rigorous evaluation structure.
Mohammed Al Marri, Director of Data and Digital Innovation Department at the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, said AI is applied across three stages of the evaluation process, beginning with the assessment phase. “AI is used mainly to ensure the outputs that they produce is aligned with the model.”
In the second phase, innovations will help strengthen data validation and analysis, Al Marri added. “We built 30-plus agents to review the content and to surface gaps that have not been surfaced earlier.”
At the final stage, AI supports the grand jury through deeper, system-wide insights. “We built something called knowledge graph to eliminate hallucination and to look at the patterns across the whole of government,” he said.
The official ADAEP awards ceremony will be held in April 2026, to celebrate the winning entities and initiatives and highlight their contributions and efforts in advancing the government ecosystem across the emirate.
