Announcing the government records and information management statement to support innovation and excellence
The National Library and Archives celebrates the International Archives Week in the presence of a significant number of government archives directors and parties concerned with archiving in the UAE

His Excellency Abdulla Majed Al Ali, Director General of the NLA, confirmed that preserving and making the Nation’s memory accessible rank at the top of the NLA’s duties, and this fits in exactly with the objectives of the International Archives Day, which promotes awareness about the importance of preserving and safeguarding archives and ensuring accessibility to them.
The NLA held a ceremony in celebration of the International Archives Week under the slogan “The Importance of Organizing and Preserving Documentary Heritage”. In the opening speech, His Excellency stated: “As our main focus in the past was on traditional archives, today we need to double our efforts to cope with the global technological transformation in terms of archives digitization and preservation of their identity and specificity. Indeed, we go beyond that as we pave the way for artificial intelligence technologies and applications in the field of archiving, documentation and national memory preservation in order to bring a better future for the collection, analysis and preservation of history, which represents our culture.”
The forum included a lecture about the importance of preserving the national documentary heritage and organizing documents and records at the government entities. During the forum, the government records and information management statement to support innovation and excellence was announced in addition to approving the best practices for government information management as a national wealth.
Mr. Hamad Al Mutairi, Director of Archives Department, delivered a lecture on the importance of national documentary heritage preservation. He focused on the significance of organizing documents and archives at government entities, which requires legal compliance, support of decision makers, documentation of achievements and sustainability assurance, keeping up with global professional and technical developments, promoting administrative and organizational efficiency, preserving rights and ensuring accountability, documenting the collective and corporate memory and benefiting from previous experiences and knowledge.
Al Mutairi emphasized that the responsibility for preserving the documentary heritage lies on leaders, legists, employees in charge of documents and archives organization, strategic planning and information technology in addition to all staff members of the entity. He discussed, in detail, the duties and responsibilities of all mentioned parties.
Furthermore, he explained, in depth, the basic elements of implementation, including the establishment of an organizational unit for documents and archives, provision of infrastructure for physical archives preservation, building of a comprehensive electronic system for documents management and preservation, provision of technical tools and formulation of policies and procedures of inventory and transfer, preservation and accessibility and historical documents transfer to the NLA.
Additionally, Al Mutairi focused on the importance of protecting documents from leak, loss and unintentional damage, stressing that such issues would result in the Nation’s memory and researchers losing an important chapter in the Nation’s history.
He concluded the lecture by presenting the roadmap for the period up to 2027 and pointed out the responsibilities and duties, which the archiving entities have to shoulder to organize and preserve the documentary heritage.
It is worth mentioning that during the forum the government records and information management statement to support innovation and excellence was announced in addition to approving the best practices for government information management as a national wealth. The statement assured that the NLA supports innovation and excellence in accordance with the UAE’s official approach. It aims to encourage government entities to appoint an employee or expert to supervise and follow up the process of information and records management, make the required amendments, deal with government information and records as national assets, take effective measures to ensure protection of government information and records assets for long-term accessibility and transfer of historical records and information assets to the NLA’s custody in accordance with its executive regulation, etc.