Her Excellency Mariam bint Mohammed Saeed Hareb Almheiri was appointed as UAE
Minister of State for Food Security in October 2017. Her responsibilities include
overseeing the development of the necessary infrastructure to ensure that the country’s
food security objectives are in line with the UAE Centennial 2071 Plan.
In addition, H.E. represents the UAE federal government in the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) as well as the International Centre for
Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on
Food Systems Innovation.
H.E. Almheiri has been nominated to lead some unique projects in the field of
aquaculture under the initiatives of H.H. the President of UAE, through the Ministry of
Presidential Affairs to establish the foundation needed for this new economic sector to
develop and thrive in the country. In addition, she is also a member of the overseeing
council of the recently launch Ministry of Possibilities.
She previously served as Assistant Undersecretary for Water Resources and Nature
Conservation Affairs at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, where she
was appointed to oversee the Biodiversity, Fisheries, Coastal & Marine Sustainability
and Marine Research departments.
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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.
