Sheikh Mohammed launches new global tolerance initiative

UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has launched a global initiative to encourage tolerance.

The initiative will include an award to “honour champions of tolerance throughout the world,” official news agency WAM reported.

The ‘Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Award for Tolerance’ will provide support to the “intellectual, cultural and media promotions of values of tolerance and openness”.

Sheikh Mohammed also announced the establishment of the International Institute for Tolerance – the first of its kind in the Arab world to offer advice and expert views on policies for promoting values of tolerance among nations.

The institute will also publish studies and research reports on tolerance, release social studies on the root causes of fundamentalism, seclusion and sectarianism and work with relevant authorities to instill principles of tolerance in the younger generations, the report said.

It will further provide support to Arab and international experts and specialists in tolerance and contribute to developing educational systems.

“The UAE has established itself as a global role model for tolerance. We cherish tolerance as a key value. Yet, we intend to transform that value into a sustainable institutional work that will reflect positively on our peoples in the Arab world,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

“Our Arab societies need to be prepared intellectually to embed the culture of tolerance, openness and peaceful co-existence.”

The new programme is part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, which includes 30-plus entities that will reach out to more than 130 million people in the next 10 years and focus on developmental and relief efforts across the Arab region and internationally.

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The Initiatives will include five categories, three of which will be dedicated to honouring champions of tolerance in human thought, literary creativity and the arts. The other two categories will focus on youth projects and new media.

Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, and secretary general of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, described the tolerance award as a “practical response” to the sources of tension in the region.