ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani received a UAE delegation on Tuesday, discussing the expansion of bilateral cooperation and more than 30 Emiriati initiatives "designed to bring UAE expertise to the Kurdistan Region."

Prime Minister Barzani thanked the delegation "for visiting the Kurdistan Region to conduct a government experience exchange program and share their expertise with [Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)] officials," according to a KRG statement released Tuesday.

The delegation, spearheaded by the UAE's Assistant Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Competitiveness and Experience Exchange Abdulla Nasser Lootah, included senior officials from the Emirati Prime Minister’s Office and numerous ministries.

The "UAE and KRG officials held nine focused roundtables to identify areas of collaboration, including strategy, government digitalization, future foresight, investment and economy, healthcare, climate change, logistics, aviation, and capacity building," the statement continued.

Both sides explored ways to enhance bilateral cooperation and announced more than 30 initiatives designed to bring UAE expertise to the Kurdistan Region.

The program includes launching a Government Performance Management System to improve oversight and accountability, alongside the Kurdistan Coders Initiative, which aims to train 30,000 youths in digital skills to “empower the next generation of Kurdistani innovators,” the statement added.

UAE and KRG officials held nine roundtables to strengthen ties and explore cooperation in areas such as digital governance, investment, healthcare, climate change, and aviation.

At a separate event on Tuesday, the UAE delegation attended the Erbil forum, where the partnership, an initiative by Areen Masrour Barzani, was formally announced, involving two major projects.

The projects include a centralized Performance Management System (PMS) for the KRG, which will reimagine the government’s ability to monitor its departments, and the Kurdistan Coders Program, aimed at upskilling the Kurdistan Region’s youth across all provinces in digital and coding skills.

The visit comes amid a major KRG push to digitalize public services, notably through projects like MyAccount, which aims to bolster the Kurdistan Region’s banking sector by incentivizing civil servants to receive their salaries through banks.

Relations between Abu Dhabi and Erbil have seen major improvements under the KRG’s ninth cabinet. 

The Emirati foreign ministry appointed Minister of State Saeed Mubarak Rashid al-Hajeri as its Envoy for Special Affairs to the Kurdistan Region in September. Hajeri led a high-level delegation, including several ministers, to Erbil, making Tuesday’s event the second key visit by UAE officials to the Kurdistan Region in just over two months.

Hajeri’s visit was preceded just days earlier in early September by a delegation from the KRG’s Board of Investment to the UAE to attend a conference promoting investment in the Kurdistan Region, with Emirati investment in the Region reportedly valued at over $3.3 billion.