Her Excellency Shamma bint Sohail Faris Al Mazrui was appointed as the UAE’s Minister of Community Development since February 2023. She was previously appointed as the Minister of State for Youth Affairs in February 2016 at the age of 22, making her the world’s youngest cabinet minister at the time of her appointment.

H.E. Shamma is also the Vice-Chair of the Arab Youth Center. She serves as the Chairperson for Special Olympics UAE and is a Committee Member of the Board of Directors and Executive Council of NAFIS, as well as the Secretary General of the Education and Human Resources Council of the UAE Cabinet, and a board member of Emirates Foundation and a Global Leadership Council member of UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited.

She also holds the post of COP28 Youth Climate Champion, as part of the incoming COP28 Presidency team and serves as a member of the Higher Committee of COP28, led by his Highness Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed.

Previously, H.E. Shamma worked in Private Equity at one of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds. She also worked as a Public Policy Analyst at the UAE Mission to the United Nations, as a Ministry Policy Analyst with the Prime Minister’s Office, as a Research Analyst at the UAE Embassy in DC, and as an Education Policy Researcher at Tamkeen (UAE Strategic Affairs Authority).

H.E. Shamma obtained her Master of Public Policy with Distinction from the University of Oxford in 2015. She was also the first UAE Rhodes Scholar In 2018, listed in CNBC’s ‘7 Female Activists Under 23 Who Are Changing the World’, and awarded the NYU Making a Difference Award where completed her B.A. in Economics with a concentration in Finance at New York Abu Dhabi (2014). She has also completed coursework at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.