Public-private partnership in managing labor market in UAE - case study

This paper reports the experience of adopting the Public-Private Partnership concept in modern governance and discusses issues like Models for Electronic Public Services (EPS), Government Collaboration Patterns, and Models for Citizen Engagement in the context of delivering high quality government services in complex environment. The Ministry of Labour (MoL) of the UAE is the federal agency responsible of managing a labor market dominated by foreign workers - 95% of the work force. Managing a labor market of such nature is not an easy task. Between the offer and the demand, the government needs to regulate the market place in a way that is beneficiary for all players and serve the national interest in the first place. MoL is the sole authority controlling the issuance of permits to businesses to bring in foreign workers - import manpower - on temporary bases. Dealing with a population from all parts of the world with such a huge variations of legal documents make it quasi impossible to have an error free service. To review, verify and authenticate all types of documents MoL had to count on the private sector help. MoL created a network of certified service offices that act as a buffer area between MoL's services seekers and MoL organization. Smart Forms were developed in collaboration with another private sector ICT services provider, who provides all technical system infrastructure investments and works on profit-sharing principles. Authentication of documents is carried out by another private sector partner.

For all these partnerships to work effectively and efficiently, a major structural reform in MoL had to be carried out. The transformation from a structure that is geared to manage the entire processes of service delivery to a completely new structure that works in partnership with other non-governmental entities -and make it works- was not an easy operation.

New business concepts needed to be invented, examined and developed in special testing environments. Customization of services was another area of the reform program that was key success factor. The knowledge management program and its institutionalization was one of the pivotal axes of the transformational program. A new business architecture was developed and adopted my MoL to respond to the challenges facing it as a policy making and regulatory authority in labour market management in UAE.

The transformation needed to be very carefully planned, managed and executed without any interruption of service, and has considered all internal and external engagements and commitments. An educate change management program was a key factor for the success of the transformation process.

With a successful implementation of PPP, MoL today is providing all its customers with effective online services, within an efficient setup.