Law
No. (8) of 2015
Concerning the
Community
Development Authority in Dubai[1]
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
We,
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai,
After perusal
of:
Law No. (3) of 2003 Establishing the Executive
Council of the Emirate of Dubai;
Law No. (27) of 2006 Concerning Management of
the Government of Dubai Human Resources and its amendments; and
Law No. (12) of 2008 Establishing the
Community Development Authority in Dubai and its amendments,
Do
hereby issue this Law.
This Law will be cited as "Law No. (8)
of 2015 Concerning the Community Development Authority in Dubai".
The following words and expressions,
wherever mentioned in this Law, will have the meaning indicated opposite each
of them unless the context implies otherwise:
|
Emirate: |
The Emirate of Dubai. |
|
Ruler: |
His Highness the Ruler of Dubai. |
|
Executive Council: |
The Executive Council of the Emirate of Dubai. |
|
CDA: |
The Community Development Authority in Dubai. |
|
Director General: |
The director general of the CDA. |
|
Social Development: |
An integrated system with the objective of developing
individuals, families, and the society.
|
|
Social Sector: |
The system of governmental and non-governmental Social
Services, and the policies and strategies regulating them. This system
includes public and private for-profit and non-profit entities, which provide
Social Services. |
|
Social Services: |
All the services which contribute to Social
Development in general, and to the care for and protection, empowerment, and inclusion of the Most Vulnerable
Segments in particular. These services include raising awareness; counselling;
providing shelter for non-health-related purposes; day care; home care;
social habilitation; protection from abuse, negligence, and exploitation; and
offering financial benefits, whether monetary or in-kind. |
|
Most Vulnerable Segments: |
Categories of individuals, determined by the CDA,
having characteristics or traits which render them prone to social exclusion,
or which make them less capable of predicting, confronting, or resisting natural
or human dangers. These categories include the elderly; persons with disabilities;
children, especially those deprived of family care; juvenile delinquents;
delinquency-prone juveniles; homeless juveniles; foundlings; drug addicts and
recovering addicts; prisoners and their families; patients of Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome and similar diseases; and low-income persons. |
|
Volunteer Work: |
An activity to which a natural person contributes,
by his own choice and outside of his family circle, his time, effort, or
skills, with a view to benefiting and helping others, and not for the purpose
of deriving any financial gain for himself. |
|
Social Services Provider: |
Any entity authorised by the CDA to provide Social Services
in the Emirate. |
|
Private Sector Social Responsibility: |
A self-imposed commitment, by for-profit companies
and establishments, to contribute to achieving sustainable development and to
improving the quality of life of their employees and the community. |
|
Civil Society Organisation: |
A non-profit entity established by a founder(s) for
a definite or indefinite term, and based on allocating money to activities
that promote benevolence, solidarity, and cooperation among members of the
community. |
|
Civil Society: |
A non-profit entity, comprising an organised group
of natural and/ or legal persons, established for a definite or indefinite
term, and conducting any activities that promote benevolence, solidarity, and
cooperation among members of the community. |
The
provisions of this Law will apply to the Community Development Authority in
Dubai, established pursuant to the above-mentioned Law No. (12) of 2008 as a
public authority having legal personality and the legal capacity required to undertake
all acts and dispositions that ensure achievement of its objectives.
The
head office of the CDA will be located in the Emirate. The CDA may establish
branches and offices within the Emirate.
The CDA will have the following objectives:
1. to contribute to positioning the Emirate as a safe
and suitable place to live and work;
2. to contribute to regulating and improving Social
Development in the Emirate;
3. to enhance the independence of the Most
Vulnerable Segments, and help those among them who cannot meet their basic
needs;
4. to undertake general supervision of the achievement
of outputs of the Social Sector in the Emirate;
5. to contribute to providing comprehensive Social
Services to all target segments of society; and
6. to promote innovation and development in the Social
Sector with a view to fulfilling the social aspect of sustainable development.
For the purpose of achieving its objectives, the
CDA will have the duties and powers to:
1. draft the social policies and social strategic
plans of the Emirate, particularly those related to Social Development, Social Sector,
Private Sector Social Responsibility, human rights, and national identity
promotion; and supervise, in coordination with the concerned entities within
and outside of the Emirate, the implementation of such policies and plans upon
their approval;
2. propose legislation related to Social Development,
Social Services, and Social Sector regulation;
3. regulate, license, monitor, and supervise
Civil Society Organisations and Civil Societies in the Emirate, excluding organisations
and societies established pursuant to legislation, or those which fall within the
jurisdiction of the Federal Government;
4. regulate, license, monitor, and supervise
Social Services Providers, in accordance with the legislation in force in the
Emirate;
5. regulate, license, monitor, and supervise persons
engaged in providing Social Services, in accordance with the legislation in
force in the Emirate;
6. regulate individual and group Volunteer Work,
and issue the required permits;
7. create and manage a social information system
and a comprehensive social database in the Emirate;
8. develop the plans and programmes required to
ensure the quality and availability of human rights services in the Emirate, submit
these plans and programmes to the Executive Council for approval, and provide
such services;
9. develop the plans and programmes required to
ensure the availability of Social Services to members of the society in general
and to the Most Vulnerable Segments in particular, submit these to the
Executive Council for approval, and provide such services in accordance with
the relevant requirements and rules approved by the CDA;
10. provide urgent financial aid to critical
humanitarian cases, in accordance with the relevant standards adopted by the
CDA;
11. attract, develop, and qualify the human
resources required by the Social Sector;
12. develop Social Development-related awareness and
educational programmes and activities for community members and institutions;
13. develop the plans and programmes that
contribute to developing and socially empowering youth;
14. own and take lease of real property and movables
required to enable the CDA to perform the functions assigned to it; and
15. enter into contracts and agreements with third
parties in fields
related to the work of the CDA.
The executive
body of the CDA will be comprised of the Director General and a number of
employees to whom Law No. (27) of 2006 Concerning Management of the Government of Dubai Human Resources
and its amendments will apply.
a. The Director General will be appointed by a
decree of the Ruler.
b. The
Director General will supervise the management of the CDA, represent it before
third parties, and take the resolutions and measures he deems appropriate and
required for achieving the objectives and performing the functions of the CDA.
For these purposes, the Director General may:
1.
approve the general policy and strategic plans of
the CDA, and submit these to the Executive Council for final approval;
2. approve the strategic plans of the Social
Sector and Social Development in the Emirate, and submit these to the Executive
Council for final approval;
3. approve the draft annual budget and final
accounts of the CDA, and submit these to the competent entities for final approval;
4. approve the organisational structure of the
CDA and submit the same to the Executive Council for final approval;
5. approve the operational and implementation
plans of the CDA;
6.
approve
the bylaws
regulating the administrative, financial, and technical work of the CDA;
7. propose the fees and charges for the services rendered by the CDA,
and submit these to the competent entities for approval;
8.
coordinate
with the concerned entities within and outside of the Emirate in relation to fulfilling
the requirements of Social Development;
9. supervise the work of the executive body of the CDA;
10.
execute
the agreements,
contracts, and memoranda of understanding to which the CDA is party; and
11.
perform any other duties related to the
objectives of the CDA.
The
financial resources
of the CDA will consist of:
1. appropriations allocated to the CDA in the
general budget of the Government of Dubai; and
2. grants, gifts, and any other resources acceptable
to the Executive Council.
In
regulating its accounts and records, the CDA will follow the rules and
principles of government accounting. The financial year of the CDA will
commence on 1 January and will end on 31 December of each year.
The
Chairman of the Executive Council will issue the resolutions required for the
implementation of the provisions of this Law.
This
Law supersedes the above-mentioned Law No. (12) of 2008. Any provision in any
other legislation will also be repealed to the extent that it contradicts the
provisions of this Law.
This
Law comes into force on the day on which it is issued, and will
be published in the Official Gazette.
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Ruler of Dubai
Issued in Dubai on 11 April 2015
Corresponding to 22 Jumada al-Thaniyah 1436 A.H.
©2015 The
Supreme Legislation Committee in the Emirate of Dubai
[1]Every
effort has been made to produce an accurate and complete English version of
this legislation. However, for the purpose of its interpretation and
application, reference must be made to the original Arabic text. In case of conflict the Arabic text will
prevail.