With $3 Million; This Is How the UAE Bought a False Rating From a Un Organization To Polish Its Reputation
The American investigative website, The Intercept, blew up a resounding surprise by revealing that the UAE had paid huge financial bribes to improve its position in the global happiness index and to promote itself as a country of happiness and tolerance.
“Jeffrey Sachs, head of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) received $3 million to complete this false advertising mission for Abu Dhabi,” the website explained.
Many international human rights and humanitarian reports confirm that “the UAE, a country that markets itself as an oasis of happiness and cares for human rights in the region, has dark records full of war crimes against humanity and serious violations of human rights, in addition to the arbitrary arrest and torture of journalists, activists and intellectuals, and their disappearance in the depths of prisons.”
State of Happiness
The Intercept website stated, in a report dated December 29, 2021, that the American economist, Jeffrey Sachs, known for his relations within the United Nations, worked to polish the crimes of the UAE in exchange for financial bribes and played a role in preparing reports that ranked Abu Dhabi among the happy countries around the world.
“Sachs helped the UAE convey its message to the world. He has sharpened the drive for happiness. He delivered speech after word to link them to pressing global issues, describing Emirati leaders as idealists and wise men,” the investigation said.
“SDSN, a non-profit organization led by Jeffrey Sachs, has received at least $3 million from the UAE to fund work related to the World Happiness Report, an annual rating of countries' quality of life,” according to the investigation.
“The UAE government donated, through Sachs, separately, an amount of $200,000 to Columbia University; in order to conduct research to show advanced indicators of happiness in the UAE,” according to the American website.
Spending records of the Earth Institute, a research institute headed by Sachs at Columbia University until 2016, confirm that the institute received Emirati funding, but a university spokesperson declined to disclose the amount of funding, according to The Intercept, the institute has been separately funded by the Emirates Competitiveness Council since 2013.
It is noteworthy that Sachs enjoys long-term relationships with the rulers of the UAE.
He had described the UAE financial bribes as contributions and gifts to the efforts of the United Nations to promote the global use of indicators and objectives of happiness and well-being in designing national development policies.
In June 2020, the UAE government reported that Jeffrey Sachs had joined forces with a number of thinkers and experts to launch the country's luxury academy, an institute that trains UAE government employees on how to integrate happiness into their work.
“Sachs ignored human rights violations in the UAE in exchange for receiving funds on a regular basis from its government, and worked to polish the image of its repressive regime and show it that it respects human rights,” the investigation revealed.
On the reasons why the UAE pays huge bribes to international and non-governmental organizations, the Emirati judicial and legal advisor, Mohammed bin Saqr al-Zaabi said in a statement to Al-Estiklal: “The leaders of the UAE do not want the world to show their true face that their regime is a violation of human rights.”
“The UAE, through the establishment of ministries such as happiness and tolerance, tried to polish its reputation and image before the world, but it did not succeed, because the bad reputation of the human rights situation in the Emirates is no more than a secret,” he added.
Regarding Abu Dhabi's efforts to improve its classification in the happy countries index worldwide, al-Zaabi explained that “this is a trick for the inside and marketing for the outside, as the Emirates and other dictatorship countries have practiced this before, but things do not always work out, even if for a short period of time they succeed in deceiving people.”
“The UAE is making great efforts in concealing its human rights violations rather than addressing them, as it pours all its efforts to hide the traces of its crimes regarding human rights, but it does not take the right path by respecting these rights,” al-Zaabi stated.
To Expand its Influence Globally
The Intercept’s investigation indicated that the UAE in 2016 established the Ministries of Tolerance and Happiness to cover up its crimes, gross violations of human rights and the reality of internal repression in the country, and also began funding international thinkers to publish studies and research related to psychology and happiness.
“The UAE is not a happy place for women who live as second-class citizens, and for activists who are serving years in prison for Facebook posts,” the investigation also noted.
For the despotic leaders of the UAE seeking to expand the UAE's influence globally, sustainability and happiness represent a means of influence within the United Nations.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, said: “They are trying to create an international profile for the UAE by establishing international partnerships with prestigious global institutions such as Columbia University, and individuals such as Jeffrey Sachs.”
It is noteworthy that the list of rankings for the World Happiness Index is calculated based on data from the Gallup global opinion poll.
The UAE ranked 19th out of 95 countries in the global rankings of the happiness index between 2017 and 2019, but in 2020 it fell to 27th.
However, Sachs and his co-workers took pains to explain and defend it, saying it was due to lower life satisfaction among migrant workers and the UAE's foreign population, who make up 88% of the country's population.
According to Sachs' statements to The Intercept, most of the Emirati money that Sachs receives to support his business in the context of happiness comes from the office of the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who previously donated several times to SDSN between 2017 and 2021.
“The ruler of Dubai, who is funding happiness research in the UAE, the same one whose daughter Sheikha Latifa fled desperately in an attempt to find her stolen happiness and freedom, in early 2018, before she was arrested again in India and handed over to the authorities of her country,” the website also mentioned.
The American website confirmed that “after the escape attempt of Latifa, the daughter of Mohammed bin Rashid, SDSN obtained at least $1 million from the office of the ruler of Dubai.”
The non-profit organization SDSN also included the name of the “Office of the Prime Minister of the UAE” on the list of donors on its website, along with about 20 others.
The 2017 and 2018 tax forms, which were submitted to the New York State Attorney General, indicate that the UAE was the second largest government donor to SDSN during these two years.
Emirati Tolerance Scandal
In a severe blow to the disgraceful record of the UAE leaders, on October 17, 2020, the Sunday Times newspaper blew up a heavy-caliber surprise by revealing a sex scandal for a member of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi, who is the country's Minister of Tolerance.
“The British, Caitlin McNamara (33 years old), who was working on the preparation of the Hay Festival of Literature, an annual British event, which was organized by the UAE in February 2020, filed a complaint against Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan (70 years old), the Minister of Tolerance in the UAE, accusing him of sexually assaulting her on Valentine's Day February 14, 2020,” the newspaper said.
“The incident took place in a private villa after Bin Mubarak invited McNamara to it under the pretext of discussing the preparations for the banners of the Hay Festival of Literature in Abu Dhabi,” the newspaper noted.
“Ben Mubarak received her warmly, hugged her, and presented her with a watch valued at about $4,500. He sat with her and was drinking wine, then he approached her and began to put his hands on her body. He grabbed her face and kissed her, took off his clothes and attempted to sexually assault her,” McNamara told the newspaper.
“He was very violent, and I was trying to push him away from me. I was very afraid because I know what they did to women like the princesses of Dubai who tried to escape, they were kidnapped and imprisoned,” she added.
“The British worker backs up her account with many recordings of phone calls and text messages,” The Sunday Times reported.
McNamara left the UAE towards Jordan on February 23, 2020. That is, two days before the opening of the Hay festival, which she spent 6 months preparing for. Then, she waited until her return, in July 2020, to Britain to report the incident to British police.
In response to this, the Hay Festival of Literature said in a statement on October 18, 2020, that it would not hold the Abu Dhabi event as long as the Minister of Tolerance accused of sexually assaulting a festival worker remains in his position.
After the Western media reported the terrible incident, human rights activists denounced the reality of the UAE, which promotes itself as a country that respects women's rights and supports their equality with men, while its rulers face accusations of violating women's rights and being involved in cases of rape and harassment.
Activists saw that what the British woman had revealed about the abuse of the Minister of Sexual Tolerance against her is a product of the failed and perverted policies of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said of a report on repression in the UAE: “The UAE declares itself as a beacon of tolerance in the region,
HRW wrote in its annual global report that assesses the state of human rights in countries around the world: “Despite declaring 2019 (the Year of Tolerance), the rulers of the UAE have not shown any tolerance for any form of peaceful dissent.”
It is noteworthy that the deception of establishing ministries with fictitious names such as the Ministry of Happiness and the Ministry of Tolerance in the UAE, which was known for grave violations against its citizens and which is trying to present a civilized face to the state by promoting the idea of citizen happiness, has become publicly exposed, considering that the reputation of violations and crimes remains even after a while.
These ministries were officially established, for the first time in the world, in the UAE in 2016, amid great disapproval of Abu Dhabi’s contradiction with reality and its attempt to polish its reputation and image in front of the world because of its fight against the aspirations of the rebellious peoples for their freedom and dignity, its violations spread from within to spread to many Arab and Western countries.
