Digital Governance & Security

This paper investigates two polarities: first, the current state of Dubai city and secondly, Smart Dubai, and then draws on conclusion that defines the speculative role of design against well-being of its residents. Utopia, as per the literary work of Thomas More, who is best known for his sixteenth-century publication about an imaginary city on an island, and Bernardo Secchi, who is a world renowned twentieth-century contemporary urban theorist and planner, is a specific mode developed by the western culture to imagine the future, with the elaboration of the city and its design at its center. Dubai is currently undergoing an immense transformation to becoming a smart city. The UAE government created the post of Minister of State for Happiness in 2016. The rapid development in the city’s urban planning has been phenomenal in the recent years and many researches have highlighted the direct impact of strategic vision on Dubai’s society and communities, consequently their happiness; moreover, technological revolutions have long had direct impact on human lives throughout history. This paper argues the ideas of the concept of utopia and proposes Dubai as a post-modern dynamic model with alternative ways of happiness and well-being to its residents, advocating the role of design in accomplishing a utopian vision by amalgamating David Stairs’ particular choice of terminology ‘biophilia’ and ‘technophilia’.

The concept of Reputation Risk existed since 10 years ago and started to be applied approximately 5 years ago, stressed out its importance for executives continuously since then. The Economist considers reputation risk as 'risk of risks' (Bonime-Blanc et Ponzi, 2016). This research will provide more information about the meaning and importance of reputation risk, as well as the way to quantify it. The research is a quantitative analysis, which provides detailed steps on how to quantify reputation risk. It will also include calculation of total value of reputation risk of six global companies from different industries: Wells Fargo & Company, Toyota Motors, Samsung, Alibaba, Oracle, and DHL. The findings of the research will contribute in providing for readers knowledge about the ways companies can turn the risk into an opportunity for a growth in its value.

This paper analyzes the effect of exchange rate changes on the economic performance in Egypt. Analyzing the effect of exchange rate fluctuations on output in Egypt has been increasingly imperative in the wake of Egypt uprising of 2011 and the subsequent depreciations of the Egyptian pound which ended up with the decision to liberalize the foreign exchange market in 2016. Toward the purpose of the paper, a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) Blanchard-Quah model is constructed using quarterly data for Egypt over the period 2005–2016. This method imposes restrictions on the long-run response of variables to the structural shocks. Such restrictions are believed to be more consistent with the general agreement on the long-run properties of economic theory. The impulse response functions (IRFs) and forecast error variance decompositions (FEVDs) are customary tools to investigate the direction and magnitude of the impact of devaluation on output. The findings of this paper support the significant effect of changes of the exchange rate on real output. The results reveal an initial expansionary effect of devaluation on output that turns to be short-lived contractionary impact. Macroeconomic policies prove to have a positive and significant effect on output. The results confirm the small magnitude of the fiscal multiplier effect on output. In addition, fiscal and monetary policies have a significant effect on exchange rate but with opposite directions.

SMEs represents a micro-economic sectors, which holds a large interest from the world's countries, all international and regional organizations, researchers, and also different bodies. Under the global economic changes and remittances, SMEs play a central role in production, employment, income generation, innovation, and technological progress as well as its role in achieving economic and social objectives of all countries. SMEs play a vital role in influencing the overall data and results of the work of economies of the developed and developing world, and their countries. Also, its role is not limited to direct financial data only it beyond the direct impact on all other data, especially social. The experience, in many countries of the developed world as well as in the Arab world, has recently been under many political and social changes and challenging. It proven that the SMEs are more capable of great resilience in the face of changes, crises, economic fluctuations, and in achieving sustainable development projects through an enabling environment with creating and facilitating access to funding under different financial structures, and strengthening the role of corporate social responsibility (The support that SMEs get in the Kingdom of Bahrain, research paper presented in the five international conference, 2014). These projects are considered the backbone of economic development in developed and developing countries alike because of the important role they play in the fight against unemployment, increased industrial added value, support for large national industries, and improve the competitive in both commercial and industrial sector. In this context, we remember the inspiring quote from a book by Professor Younus, Grameen—Social Business building (Yunus in Bangladesh banker and economist, Gulf Emirati Newspaper, Economic Section, 2014) “… The poor are like Japanese Bonsai trees, when the best seed of the tallest tree planted in a small flower pot, we can get a replica of the tree dish, but with a length of only several inches. There is nothing wrong in the seeds that were planted, only the soil area were not sufficient for growth. Poor people are bonsai people, there is nothing wrong with the seed, but the community did not provide them with a sound basis for growth. All that is needed for poor people out of poverty is to create an enabling environment for them.” In light of the results, the micro, small, and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Kingdom of Bahrain need to be supported financially, mainly, and all other types of support, in all its details to ensure that it continues to play an efficient and effective role at all levels socially, economically, and also politically. Therefore, all official, non-official, stakeholders need to reconsider and discuss ways to facilitate and simplify procedures for providing such financially and other supportive elements, even with that liquidity fund, 2019, for these projects in order to develop them and maintain their sustainability, growth, and success.

This article aims to detail how the Iranian rationale deals with a more complex puzzle that that diagnosed by the western leading policies of the Donald Trump administration. It explains in detail why one of the first decisions of the USA after the withdrawal was to designate the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” as a terrorist organization, implying that the Iranian nuclear arms race was not only dependent but structurally linked both, with the domestic political structure of the country, as well as with the doctrinal and historical goals of the original Islamic Revolution. The article also accounts for the single most important influential regions and strategy for action of the Islamic Revolution, an agenda that uses conventional force, and soft power methods to increase their sphere of overarching action from the Middle East to the western hemisphere.

After September 11, 2001, the entire world was threatened by the Islamic terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Led by Osama Bin Laden, they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and showed everyone that the USA was vulnerable to attacks, killing thousands of innocent people in the process since most of the people inside the World Trade Center were civilians. After that, Al-Qaeda was considered the main public enemy in the War on Terror, which the USA and its allies in NATO started shortly after. With the changes to national security policies, aviation security, airport security and counter-terrorism measurements undertaken by states and international organizations (United Nations, European Union, Commonwealth etc.), there was less belief that another organization could rise again and become as powerful as Al-Qaeda, which was believed to have stopped their attacks in 2011, after the killings of Osama Bin Laden. After Bin Laden was killed, many believed the organization Al-Qaeda to have dispersed and become less active. Nevertheless, there are many reports and researches showing that Al-Qaeda was still active in Southeast Asia, where they are still recruiting fighters for the Jihad, under new leadership. However, in 2011, the world witnessed public uprisings and revolt in several states in the Middle East (Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, etc.), where rebels started fighting against the current regime. This event was later known as the Arab Spring. After the Arab Spring, another terrorist organization became famous for the proclamation of their Khalifate—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, commonly known as ISIS. ISIS started operating a large-scale network spreading across the borders of Iraq and Syria, where their Khalifate was located, and led attacks in Europe and the USA and was affiliated with other attacks being conducted by affiliated organizations. In 2017, the USA and its allies led an attack on ISIS and officially declared the organization “defeated,” killing the majority of their fighters and attacking their headquarters in the largest ISIS Khalifate. But, much to the surprise of everyone else, ISIS continued to exist and led attacks after 2017, with the most recent attack being the Sri Lanka Easter Bombings on Christian churches in the capital in 2019. Despite being “defeated” in the military sense, ISIS continues to exist in the virtual world, and reports show that they are still recruiting fighters and spreading propaganda through the internet, thus this formation has been given the name ISIS 3.0.

In the last few decades, technological advancements and innovation in the digital age have greatly contributed to the concept of online dispute resolution (ODR) being a viable option, which has seen rapid growth in both developed and developing countries. The ODR mechanism is highly prevalent in several countries in the world, to the benefit of society and the litigant public in the twenty-first century. ODR can be well described as the use of technology (Information and Communications Technology) in the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process. ADR mechanisms were enhanced by taking advantage of the digital advancements, providing access to speedier justice. In a majority of countries around the world, especially as evidenced in India, the court systems face numerous challenges in justice administration due to an extraordinary number and nature of claims, seeking appropriate redressal. In the electronic commerce environment, especially business to consumer international transactions happening in the online medium, which can be classified as cross-border transactions have exacerbated challenges concerning jurisdiction, unconscionable dispute resolution clauses, etc. This article presents a view on the developments of electronic virtual courts across the world due to COVID-19 with special consideration of its effects in India, the possibilities of developments of ODR in line with the recent setup of e-courts (virtual courts) and an urgent need of an advanced automated dispute resolution process to deal with e-commerce disputes through the use of the internet and by way of technological advancements.

The Middle East offers a limited number of research and case studies that refer to education and psychological programs designed to rehabilitate Juveniles in detention centers, especially in the UAE. The lack of research in this field has led to lower the awareness and the public perception of these centers and has kept them in the dark. Despite the fact that most detention centers welcome public volunteer programs and psychological analysis of the wellbeing of the young minds that reside in the facility, the lack of awareness has affected the development of a cohesive program that is affective and can actually help rehabilitating the children. So far, juveniles in Al Mafraq receive their normal education in the school built in the center, and see social workers to discuss their mental health, and receive minimum psychological assessment when they enter the facility. The Department of Culture and Tourism—Abu Dhabi (DCT) has initiated a program in 2017 to help minimize the gap and offered programs that allow juveniles to express themselves aiming to raise awareness of their inner feelings and bring it to the outside world. This paper is an intrinsic case study; describing one of the programs offered by (DCT), the writing program, and the process of instructions and construction as well as the writing material developed by the juveniles. Lastly, the observed changed behaviors of the Juvenile Center residents after the program called “Atrab.”

This paper aims to answer the burning question of how food markets help the food sovereignty in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper divulges into topics concerning food security by focusing on primary and secondary data sources. These were collected through online portals. An in-depth analysis was conducted on Water–Energy–Food nexus and food sovereignty in the UAE. The UAE’s biggest challenge due to its environment and geography is agriculture, and this forms the main discussion of this paper. The country's strong diplomatic contacts have facilitated several options for importing food. Engaging in research and development to assess new local food sources will decrease reliance on imported goods. The National Food Security Strategy 2051 is designed to address this situation, and everyone must contribute to its goals.

Privacy is considered an important value in the Emirati society, which holds a strong Islamic identity; therefore, it has influenced its traditions and style of living. As a result, the design of the traditional residential unit and attire, for both male and female, has reflected this social element. In this paper, we will explore, analyze, and compare the design characteristics that are common between Emirati vernacular architecture and the traditional Emirati clothing, which respond to the need for privacy. We visited houses in the historic neighborhood of Al Bastakyia in Dubai and examined the traditional Emirati attire before and after the modernization movement. We conclude that common design features do exist in fashion and architecture, and that they were meant to provide various levels of privacy on individual, family, and societal levels. The final goal is to achieve a moral society that preserves the dignity of its members and strives for a general sense of equality.