Dubai immigration authority becomes the first government entity in the emirate to secure top honours at ET Human Capital Awards MENA 2026
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai has won an international Gold award for developing an advanced model integrating human resources planning with data analytics.
The authority secured the recognition in the ‘Excellence in HR Data Analytics’ category at The Economic Times Human Capital Awards MENA 2026. Published records of the award winners confirm GDRFA as the first Dubai government department to achieve Gold in this category.
The award recognizes GDRFA’s ‘Government Workforce Intelligence Ecosystem’, designed to optimize workforce deployment and forecast future human resource requirements. The platform evaluates employee capabilities against institutional operational needs to streamline strategic planning.
The project builds upon an organizational structure management framework established by the authority in 2024. The ecosystem centralizes organizational frameworks, workforce allocation, data analytics, performance indicators, and future workforce demands into a unified operational platform to drive administrative decision-making.
Investing in human capital remains the foundation of building future-ready government organizations, said Lieutenant General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, Director General of GDRFA Dubai. Aligning personnel competencies with the authority’s core strategic objectives drives overall operational efficiency and evidence-based decision-making.
Al Marri added that the international recognition reflects the capability of Emirati talent in establishing modern public administration systems tailored to navigate future operational challenges.
