Right strategies ensured the highest level of safety

WWe looked at best practices and benchmarks. We looked at how countries started reacting to the pandemic ... In Dubai, we involved the private and public sectors and also experts, who helped shape our strategy.” Aisha Miran | Assistant secretarygeneral for Strategy Management and Governance, Executive Council of Dubai

hether it was the initial stage of imposing a stay home policy and an emiratewide disinfection drive or the gradual reopening of the economy, Dubai always came up with the right strategies to ensure the highest level of safety for members of the community and support for the business sector.

How did Dubai formulate the policies that helped bring the pandemic under control while considering health, social and economic aspects of the community? Gulf News posed this question to Aisha Miran, assistant secretary-general for Strategy Management and Governance at the Dubai Executive Council.

The Council is a centre of government entities that is responsible for overseeing collaboration, coordination and strategy implementation.

The first steps

When the unprecedented health crisis hit, Aisha said the Council was at the forefront to mobilise a full team to tackle the pandemic. “One of the first things we did was establish a Covid-19 Command and Control Centre,” she said. “It reported to the Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management in Dubai.”

“The role we played in that is that we ensured the set-up of the command and control centre with different streams, right structure in place, bringing in relevant parties from the public and private sectors. We also took the lead in doing the project management work throughout the formation and implementation of the decisions and the strategies, moving forward. We also played a big role in the public policy front, leveraging our expertise in managing the command and control centre,” Miran explained.

Early reopening strategy

In the earlier stages of the command and control centre, Miran said her team worked to put the strategy and action plan together.

“We looked at best practices and benchmarks. We looked at how countries and cities started reacting to the pandemic because, by its nature, it was new and unique. In Dubai, we were lucky enough to bring in private and public sectors and also the subject matter experts, who helped us shape that strategy, locally.”

Aisha revealed that the strategies were customised based on four stages. “The first stage was slowing the spread of the virus and therefore you would have noticed that we initially had very strict control measures. There was a time when we had to do a lockdown to control the spread of the virus as well as to ensure our health care capacity was adequate, God forbid, in a worst-case scenario.”

The second stage was gradual reopening. “We started reopening from last year itself. We were among a few cities in the world to reopen our economy and have a gradual life back and follow the new normal early on,” Miran said.

“The third stage focused on lifting restrictions on social and economic activities, while ensuring that our health objectives were met and eventually lead to the fourth stage, which is full recovery or building our readiness for the coming era which is the new normal.”

Aisha said the whole philosophy and strategy revolved around striking a balance between the economic, health and social objectives.