May Babiker has 20 years of experience in the field of gender and development. She started her career as a Lecturer of women and gender studies, combining teaching with research and training.
She has a wide range of experience in designing and implementing gender responsive projects and programs, as well as action research and policy development in the fields of gender equality and inclusive growth, gender mainstreaming in national policies, population and data, reproductive health and rights, gender responsive infrastructure, entrepreneurship development and gender issues in labour and employment, with a focus on fragile and post-conflict contexts.
She has worked extensively with governments, private sector and civil society organizations in advancing the women’s empowerment agenda in the Arab world, Africa and Asia.
She previously also worked for Ahfad University for Women, UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women, the African Development Bank and currently is working for the Islamic Development Bank as a Division Manager for Women and Youth Empowerment.
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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.
