Her Excellency Hessa Bint Essa Buhumaid is a Cabinet member in the UAE
Government and the Minister of Community Development.
She was instrumental in successfully rolling out four policies in one year that were
highly beneficial to UAE residents: the National Family Policy, National Policy for People
of Determination, Child Rights Law ‘Wadeema’, and the National Policy for Senior
Emiratis.
Through her chairmanship of the Community & International Games Heritage
Committee, H.E. also attained remarkable achievements in the Special Olympics MENA
Regional Games 2018 in preparation for the World Games Special Olympics – Abu
Dhabi 2019. She also oversaw hosting participating delegations and expanding
volunteering activities.
Prior to this, she was Assistant Director General for Government Services in the Prime
Minister’s Office at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future. H.E. oversaw the
Emirates Government Services Excellence Program aiming to raise the efficiency of
government services delivery.
She is a graduate of Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Young Leadership Program and a
two-time winner of Sheikh Rashid Award for Scientific Excellence.
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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) was formed on 1 January, 1992, by a decree issued by the late
Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum to merge Dubai Electricity Company and Dubai Water Department, which
had been operating independently before then. Both organisations were established by the late Sheikh Rashid
bin Saeed Al Maktoum in 1959. Dubai Government fully supported the Electricity Company and the Water
Department to provide Dubai’s citizens and residents with a continuous and reliable supply of electricity
and water. Since then, DEWA has made considerable achievements, to be ranked as one of the best utilities in
the world. DEWA provides services today to more than 900,000 customers with a happiness rate that reached
95% in 2018.
The UAE, represented by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has maintained its first global
ranking, for the third consecutive year, with scores of 100% in all Getting Electricity indicators in the
World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report. The report measures the ease of doing business in 190 economies
around the world. DEWA achieved competitive results in global benchmarking, surpassing the private sector
and major European and American utilities in efficiency and reliability. DEWA raised the efficiency of its
energy production by using the latest technologies and adopting technological innovations, surpassing
European and American utilities, by reducing losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks
to 3.3% compared to 6–7% in the US and Europe. DEWA also achieved the lowest customer minutes lost per year
(CML) in the world of 2.39 CML compared to 15 minutes in Europe and was also able to reduce water network
losses to 6.5% in 2018 compared to 15% in North America, which is one of the best results in the world.
