Cultural policy in Abu Dhabi

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Cultural policy in Abu Dhabi, a city within the United Arab Emirates, refers to any initiative undertaken by the Emirate government aimed at achieving goals to contribute to or shape culture. Abu Dhabi's government aims to develop a cultural infrastructure that will allow it to establish itself as a reference point for culture on three levels:^[1]

• Locally, Abu Dhabi would preserve and sustain local traditions and heritage, promoting itself as the custodian of true Emirati and Arab identity, counterweighting cultural homogenization due to increasing shares of expatiates in the population;^[2]
• Regionally, the focus on culture is meant to help the city and the Emirate compete against traditional centers of power in the Arab world (e.g. Egypt, Lebanon, pre-conflict Syria, etc.) for a leading role in Middle Eastern politics;^[1]
• Globally, Particular focus on the service sector and innovation.^[1]

Since 2004, the Abu Dhabi government has invested resources to attain these goals. It has done so by developing local cultural districts, promoting education, and engaging in grand scale plans of urban transformation within the conceptual framework of "cultural infrastructure".^[1] Under the blueprint of the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 Archived 2011-05-31 at the Wayback Machine plan, as these efforts have been branded, the main government body responsible for cultural development in the Emirate today is the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCTAD).^[4]