2009 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

A citizen right to information does not exist in United Arab Emirates, but in 2009, the centralized National Documentation and Research Centre was created to better streamline the government's information request system. Although not under any formal mandate to respond to citizen requests or appeals for information, this center generally does make information available to citizens and journalists who ask. The traditional legacy of deference to leadership can be seen in current restrictions on media reporting, which discourage journalists from their criticizing political leaders and their actions. At the national level, regulations for minimizing conflicts of interest could be strengthened to include cooling off periods following government employment and the auditing of government employees' asset disclosure forms. Political parties do not exist in the UAE and in national elections, candidates are placed on the ballot by the ruler of their emirate and then by the Electoral College. Political fundraising in the UAE is limited by an overall cap on candidate campaign expenditures and not on a donation-by-donation basis. The effective Supreme Audit Institution, UAE's leading government anti-corruption unit, kept a close eye on political spending in the last election. But going forward, this system leaves room for potential influence pedaling through the monopolization of candidates' funding by a small number of donors.