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- The concept of 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 of certain cultural content and ascribable within a coherent strategic framework. Today, Abu Dhabi's foremost ambition is to develop a cultural infrastructure that will allow it to establish itself as a reference point for culture on three levels:
* 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;
* 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;
* Globally, as a leading cultural hub and center for education able to attract foreign creative talents and diversify its economy, with a particular focus on the service sector and innovation. With these goals in mind the government has, since 2004, invested a consistent amount of resources in developing local cultural districts, promoting education, and engaging in grand scale plans of urban transformation within the conceptual framework of “cultural infrastructure”. Under the blueprint of the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 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). (en)
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