In his speech on the occasion, Dr. Abdulla Al Raisi, Director-General of the NA, highlighted the key role of the NA in preserving national documents, as well as the significant support of the UAE’s leadership, which enabled it to overcome related challenges and barriers.
He also noted NA’s projects and contributions in friendly Arab and foreign countries, such as the Jeddah Archives Organisation of Saudi Arabia, assisting Bahrain in establishing its national archives, and the restoration of the Napoleon Library in Elba, Italy.
Al Raisi then pointed out the importance of the digital archives of the Arabian Gulf, established by the NA, in cooperation with the UK’s National Archives, containing over 500,000 historic documents from the UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which are available to the website’s visitors.
Since its inception as a documents office in 1968, upon the directives of the Founding Leader, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and the changes to its structure, the NA transformed from a centre of documents and studies, to a centre of documents and research, and then to a national centre for documents and research, he added, noting that Federal Law No.7 for 2008 was issued to manage the archives of over 300 government authorities.
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