UAE BARQ برق الإمارات – نبضك
Badr Jafar, Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy, received the 2026 Spear’s Impact Award at a special ceremony in London.
In his remarks, Badr Jafar highlighted the scale of philanthropic giving across the UAE, noting that more than AED11 billion has been raised by Ramadan campaigns across the UAE in the past three years, to support initiatives in food security, healthcare, education and the care of orphans.
Accepting the award, Badr Jafar spoke about the UAE’s growing place in global philanthropy, saying, “The UAE is becoming a hub for strategic philanthropy. Generosity was never the question at home. What has changed is the infrastructure around it: the data, the platforms and the partnerships that let an ancient obligation reach further and show what became possible. Philanthropy is capital. It deserves the rigour we apply to every other kind: evidence, patience, and partners.”
The Spear’s Impact Award is presented once a year, at the close of the Spear’s Awards in London, to an individual whose work has made a lasting difference beyond their own field.
Previous recipients include Sir Richard Branson, Dame Stephanie Shirley, Jessica de Rothschild, James Reed and James Chen.
Badr Jafar is the first recipient from the Arab world.
The ceremony, hosted by Spear’s Editor-in-Chief Edwin Smith, was attended by Mansoor Abulhoul, UAE Ambassador to the United Kingdom, along with 400 senior figures from the UK’s private-wealth, legal and philanthropic sectors.
Spear’s selected Badr for his sustained work over 20 years to create the conditions for philanthropy to be more strategic, accountable and connected.
He helped found the Pearl Initiative with the UN Office for Partnerships in 2010 to promote transparency and governance across the region; established the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Cambridge in 2020 and a similar initiative at NYU Abu Dhabi in 2021; and launched HasanaH, a digital giving platform covering vetted projects in more than 100 countries.
His book, The Business of Philanthropy, published by HarperCollins in 2024, draws on conversations with more than 50 philanthropic and business leaders across five continents; all of its royalties go to the International Rescue Committee for children affected by conflict.
Since 2024, Badr has served as the Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Philanthropy, appointed by H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, to mobilise business and philanthropic engagement behind the country’s development and diplomatic priorities.
The role works on three fronts: deepening cooperation between government, business and philanthropy at home; engaging the private sector in the UAE’s priority partner countries; and building relationships with the business leaders and philanthropists who shape global agendas.
In the role he has visited more than 20 countries across five continents, convening business leaders and philanthropists around what the UAE and its partners can build together.
