Vice President Addresses The Global Community at ‘Future of Work’ Forum

On Tuesday, Vice President Faisal Naseem delivered his address at the ‘Future of Work’ forum held as part of the World Government Summit 2023. The World Government Summit is being held at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, UAE from the 13-15^th of February 2023.

Speaking in his address, the Vice President reflected on various issues faced worldwide and outlined the need for swift action and collective efforts to develop novel solutions that will secure a better future. He noted that contemporary governments are confronted with increasingly complex equations such as economic volatility, unfavourable demographic trends and climate change crisis among others. In this regard, he added that good governance is a shared challenge faced by both developing and developed countries in the world.

Shedding light on the current administration of the Maldives, the Vice President highlighted that it considers three main pillars as the driving forces of development and growth in the nation and named them as democratic governance, institutional reform and modernization of the public sector. He further that Maldives is progressing towards realizing this vision through the development of human and social capital, attaining sustainable development, providing suitable social housing, modernizing transportation infrastructure and improving regional connections.

Underscoring the theme of this year’s summit - ‘Shaping Future Governments’, Vice President Faisal Naseem called it a ‘timely’ theme as it encapsulates the sentiments of a world transformed by a global pandemic. On this note, he mentioned that the pandemic obliged governments to reorient their models and introduce inventive policies and technologies to expedite government service innovation and thus overcome obstacles posed by the pandemic.

Speaking further on the pandemic, the Vice President remarked that it led to the realization of the importance of virtual societies and revolutionary changes to healthcare systems. He spoke on how remote working has become normalized to a greater extent and the increased adaptation of the remote work model and how the Maldives is becoming a hub for digital nomads and remote workers.

On Maldives’ efforts, he said that it would launch One-Gov services in March 2023, complementing the existing "GOV.MV" platform, which facilitates more accessible digital communication between government agencies and the public. He stated that the mission of this digital development agenda is to lay the foundations for expedited digital development and the introduction of digital identity.

The Vice President also underscored the administration's efforts to build a better "future of work" with a robust human resource development agenda, ensuring the minimum wage, establishing the SME Bank in support of small and medium-sized enterprises, and establishing a reliable and secure transportation system with the Raajje Transport Link (RTL) transportation system. Before concluding, he also spoke about strengthening technological capabilities to address climate change by increasing renewable energy sources, reducing disaster risk, and promoting the blue economy.