Humanitarian work in our country has never been a situational response to crises; rather, it has been a deeply rooted approach, pursued in the footsteps of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, may God rest his soul.
The country has long been active in this field, to the point that by 2025 it has become the third-largest donor of humanitarian aid in the world, having provided approximately 1.46 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance over the course of a single year — representing more than 7% of total globally recorded humanitarian aid. As humanitarian challenges accelerate, the UAE continues to look ahead to the future of charitable work by harnessing modern technologies, foremost among them artificial intelligence, to shift from responding to crises to anticipating and preparing for them before they occur.
Building on this humanitarian legacy, the need arises to develop the tools of charitable work in a manner that keeps pace with the rapid transformations the world is witnessing — particularly given that charitable and humanitarian work has for decades been bound to the speed of reaching those affected and providing support to them in the aftermath of disasters and crises.
Yet today those crises have grown more complex, resources have become more limited, and humanitarian needs have multiplied at an accelerating pace. Success can therefore no longer be measured solely by the speed of response, but by the capacity to anticipate risks and address them before they escalate into large-scale crises.
This is where the importance of artificial intelligence becomes apparent as one of the tools capable of reshaping humanitarian work. Thanks to its ability to analyse vast quantities of data, it is now possible to detect early indicators of famines, epidemics, and natural disasters, and to understand shifting patterns of displacement and humanitarian need. This enables humanitarian organisations to make more precise and efficient decisions and to direct resources to where they are most needed at the right time. As AI technologies continue to evolve, the opportunity grows to move charitable work from response to anticipation — and from addressing the consequences of crises to preventing them in the first place.
The value of technology lies not in its ability to perform tasks quickly, but in its capacity to grant human beings a deeper vision that helps them make wise decisions.