Today, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum answered questions from people around the region. Here’s just some of what he said…

“We don’t claim perfection,” H.H Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, said of the UAE today when speaking at the World Government Summit.

Some helpful attendees live tweeted Sheikh Mohammed’s Q&A session on how to “reignite” the Arab world – particular thanks to lecturer Iman ben Chaibah – and so we can tell you some of what he said during the hour-long session.

Everyone from genius South African-US inventor Elon Musk to the new UN Secretary General, the Japanese Prime Minister, the CEO of Uber and the founder of LinkedIn will be speaking at the Government Summit this week.

We’ll bring you more on it tomorrow, but here’s a bit of a highlights reel (note, many of these will be quick Twitter translations from Arabic to English – so we’ll bring you more detail on his speech asap)…

ON WHAT THE ARAB WORLD NEEDS TO DO: “My advice to Arab League nations is to open the door to the youth. They are our future and they should be part of making the future. They should focus on training the youth for future management and leadership.”

ON ITS FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM: “The Arab populations are well educated, and the region is blessed with resources, but overall it lacks management.”

ON MISUNDERSTANDING ISLAM: “The ones who don’t understand Islam are the ones that go and blow up themselves and terrorise the world. Tribal rivalry was at its worst before the advent of Islam: the religion brought civilization to us and science to the world.”

ON HIS DISDAIN FOR CORRUPTION: “Corruption can drag down a country’s economy to an extreme low… a true leader does not allow corruption… I promise you: Mohamed Bin Zayed and our brothers here in the UAE will not accept corruption.”

ON THE UAE’S HAPPINESS PROJECT: “One of my main achievements is shifting the focus of policy making from sole economic indicators to human well-being.”

ON PERSEVERANCE: “We have to work hard at all times, and especially in hard times.”

ON THE NEED FOR PLANNING: “Having vision is not enough, there must be planning to prepare for the future and achieve this vision.”

ON THE WORLD’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE UAE: “The UAE has always been subject of conspiracies, but that only made us more persistent to continue our progress.”

ON THE USA’S MISTAKES: “The UAE’s policy is to put the interest of the people above all else, and former US governments committed a series of mistakes like invading Iraq and supporting revolutions.”

ON WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE: “I do believe that one woman can have the worth of a thousand men in the workforce. Why walk with one leg? Work with one hand?… In the UAE, women hold a third of the roles in the federal government, and in the coming years we will see 50% of the members of the Council in the UAE be female.”

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