Today's Edition
ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)
Abu Dhabi’s Liveability Strategy and its focus on creating holistic, people-centric districts was highlighted as a global success story to government leaders, mayors, and city officials at the World Cities Summit (WCS) 2026 in Singapore.
Addressing global leaders at the event, Abdullah Mohammed Al Blooshi, Director General of the Urban Planning and Permits Centre (UPPC) at the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT), presented the emirate’s vision for building resilient communities that seamlessly embed its liveability agenda within a single, unified framework.
This approach is underpinned by Abu Dhabi’s centralised administrative model, which consolidates planning, transport, and municipal infrastructure under the DMT to streamline complex masterplans. The close alignment has enabled the emirate to successfully manage a 51 per cent population growth over the last decade by setting adaptable development objectives that evolve alongside demographic changes, all the while utilising real-time data and resident feedback to ensure rapid expansion never compromises community well-being.
Speaking at the Future Cities Leadership Plenary, titled 'How Do We Build New Cities?', Al Blooshi demonstrated how Abu Dhabi translates the event’s theme — Liveable and Sustainable Cities: ACT Now! — into tangible outcomes.
He highlighted that Abu Dhabi is shaping its cities to enhance the daily lives of those who call the emirate home. This is evaluated by tracking how comfortably people can navigate and access their districts, while monitoring resident satisfaction alongside walkability, public spaces, and proximity to essential services. The metrics are then used to optimise targeted investments in parks, facilities, and public services designed to foster social connection.
Al Blooshi said: “The World Cities Summit serves as an essential forum for uniting global leaders dedicated to advancing liveable societies, and it was a pleasure to share the strides Abu Dhabi has made, and continues to make, when it comes to improving quality of life from planning and design to execution and delivery. These discussions reflect our commitment to international dialogue and knowledge exchange as we work to strengthen our long-term competitiveness and enable the emirate’s ambitions.”
The summit participation formed part of a broader, multi-day visit to Singapore, where delegates engaged with leading counterparts to study groundbreaking models of land-use management, green building regulations, and smart infrastructure aimed at directly accelerating the emirate’s transition toward its expansive regional plans.
Officials met with Ms Hwang Yu-Ning, Chief of Urban Innovation and Excellence at the Ministry of National Development (MND), to share insights on national land-use policy, development control legislation, and inter-agency coordination processes. This was followed by a meeting at the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) to examine Singapore’s Green Building Masterplan, the Green Mark Scheme, and how building regulatory mechanisms can be engineered to embed sustainable construction standards directly into permitting and project approvals.
Further expanding their international partner network, the delegation held discussions with Arup, a leading engineering consultancy firm, and the Temasek Foundation’s Climate and Liveability team to explore strategic collaboration in climate-ready city concepts, advanced digital systems, and public-private funding models.
Additionally, they convened with representatives from the Shenzhen Urban Planning and Land Resource Research Centre (UPRC) to discuss best practices for smart, inclusive, and well-designed environments.
Marking a key milestone of the visit, the DMT entered into a strategic agreement with SJ Group, a leading Singapore-based urban and infrastructure consultancy, to elevate future urban living. This partnership bridges capacity building and forward-looking operations by equipping municipal teams with digital tools for seamless workflows, approvals, and customer services, while simultaneously introducing international public-private partnership (PPP) models to attract private capital for complex smart city and housing initiatives.
Leveraging Singapore’s multi-sectoral expertise, the collaboration also integrates strategic advisory on urban decarbonisation, green housing policies, and energy transition roadmaps directly into Abu Dhabi’s regulatory guidelines to ensure future masterplans are both highly progressive and operationally viable.
Al Blooshi said: “This joint effort reflects our determination to pioneer next-generation solutions that shape the future of urban living. By joining forces, we are aligning our strengths to establish new benchmarks for lasting growth, ensuring our cities remain vibrant, adaptive, and prosperous for generations to come.”
The agreement marks a new phase of cooperation in enduring progress and smart city delivery, building on the long-standing and multifaceted relationship between the UAE and Singapore, which has spanned more than 40 years and been deepened through the Singapore-UAE Comprehensive Framework signed in February 2019, and the Abu Dhabi–Singapore Joint Forum (ADSJF), which holds its sessions annually since 2007.
