Page 290 - UAE Truncal States

A City Stale - Example Dubai

Dubai and his father during the latter years of his rule have led the
development of the City Stale with single-minded determination, to
provide facilities, to encourage existing business, and to attract new
business.

4 The Development of Community Services

Background
A conscious effort to develop the physical environment which went
hand in hand with the economic development could not fail to change
fundamentally the living conditions of most long-standing residents
of Dubai, but more time was required to develop social services.
Neither the government of Dubai nor the British Government was
financially in a position to do more than initiate health care, epidemic
control, and educational projects during the early 1950s.
From the beginning of the 1950s the efforts which were made in
Dubai, to create a basis for modern social service organisations,
benefited from the fact that the British Government decided to
upgrade its representation in the Trucial Slates and to move the
newly created Political Agency to Dubai in 1954. Dubai became the
headquarters of the limited development and social services pro­
gramme which the British Government decided to organise.*15 Before
1956 assistance was given piecemeal to selected projects; the first
five-year plan with a budget of £450,000 was drawn up in that year.
Selection, planning and supervision of development projects were
until 1965 the responsibility of the British Political Agency in Dubai.
The example of what was being done for one shaikhdom often
aroused the interest of the rest of the Rulers in the Trucial States.
The Development Office of the Trucial States Council was
established in 1965 with its headquarters in Dubai, and a number of
agricultural, medical and technical experts were provided by the
British Ministry of Overseas Development. The presence of a group of
foreign specialists stationed in the then small town of Dubai, where
few other Europeans resided, gave Dubai an advantage over the other
States, as development projects could be discussed informally in the
majlis and the achievements of the Office could be observed at close
quarters. Perhaps this gave some impetus to many projects in Dubai
which were initiated with money provided by Shaikh Rashid bin
Sa'id or donated by the Rulers of Qatar and Kuwait.

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