Implementing Healthy Meals in Abu Dhabi Workplaces

Guest blog by Nouf Albadi, IPP ’26

When I started the Implementing Public Policy program, I came with a challenge that sounded simple: How can we improve access to healthy food in Abu Dhabi workplaces? 

As a public health nutritionist, I naturally looked at the challenge first from a technical perspective. We know what healthier food should look like. We can develop nutrition standards, guidelines, and policies. But throughout this course, I learned that having a technically strong policy does not mean that it will be successfully implemented. 

Implementation is about people. It is about understanding the problem, building authority, creating acceptance, strengthening ability, communicating effectively, and continuously learning and adapting. 

That has been one of my biggest lessons from this journey.  

Many employees in Abu Dhabi spend a large part of their day at work. With long working hours, meetings, busy schedules, and easy access to food delivery applications, the workplace becomes an important environment where daily food habits are formed. 

When healthy choices are difficult to find, while less healthy options are convenient and easily available, people may repeatedly choose what is easiest. 

Over time, these small daily choices matter. 

Obesity and related noncommunicable diseases are important public health concerns in Abu Dhabi. For me, this means that improving health cannot depend only on telling people to “eat healthier.” We also need to look at the environment around them. 

My implementation challenge therefore became broader than simply introducing healthy meals. It became: 

How can we successfully implement the Healthy Meals at Workplaces Policy across Abu Dhabi by creating stakeholder ownership and acceptance while coordinating implementation across multiple government entities? 

This change in the way I defined the challenge was itself part of my learning during the course.   

One of my most important learnings was how to break down a complex problem. 

At work, we sometimes face a large problem and immediately start thinking about the final solution. The course taught me to slow this process down. Instead of asking, “How do we solve everything?”, I learned to ask what is actually causing the problem and which parts of it we can realistically influence. 

Developing and repeatedly reviewing my fishbone diagram helped me do this. 

My fishbone identified several interconnected causes: the food environment, employees, food suppliers and vendors, communication and training, and leadership. Under these were smaller issues such as limited healthy choices, unhealthy food being more convenient, supplier concerns about sales, limited nutrition knowledge, insufficient implementation guidance, inconsistent communication, and limited leadership ownership. 

Seeing the challenge this way helped me understand something important: there was no single cause and therefore there could not be a single solution. 

The Authority, Acceptance and Ability framework helped me go one level deeper. A solution might technically work, but do we have the authority to implement it? Do the stakeholders accept it? Do they have the ability and resources to implement it? 

This changed how I approached the problem.  

My biggest progress was not only in the policy itself. It was in how I approached implementation. 

At the beginning, I was approaching the challenge mainly as a nutritionist. As the course progressed, I started looking at it more as an implementation problem. 

For example, I realized that the people authorizing a project do not always need or understand all the technical details that I work with every day. If I present a problem as extremely complicated, with many technical barriers and requirements, I may unintentionally make the solution appear impossible. 

Instead, I learned to break the challenge into smaller and more understandable pieces and communicate what matters to each audience. 

This connected strongly with the 4P leadership framework. I learned that Projection matters: rather than presenting the initiative only as a policy that organizations must comply with, I can frame it around improving employee health, wellbeing, and productivity. I also learned the importance of People: listening to government entities and food suppliers, understanding their concerns, and developing practical solutions together rather than only explaining technical requirements.  

Another important lesson was learning how to communicate upward to authorizers. 

In a government environment, information moves through different levels. I learned that communication needs to be simple enough for senior decision-makers to quickly understand the issue, while still providing the evidence and technical information they may need. In one of my assignments, I reflected that executive summaries can be useful, but important information can sometimes be lost as a message moves through an organizational hierarchy. I therefore started thinking more carefully about how to communicate the main message while keeping supporting evidence available.  

I also learned that progress is not always a final result. 

During my journey, I started looking at learning and leads as indicators of progress. In June, I learned that a strong policy alone was not enough and that authority, ability and acceptance all influenced implementation. In July, I identified technical limitations and expanded discussions with other partners. In August, I learned how multiple levels of authorization could slow implementation. By September, one of my main lessons was how important it is to maintain momentum while waiting for decisions.   

This helped me appreciate that implementation is rarely a straight line.  

How will this change the way I tackle problems in the future? Before jumping to a solution, I will first ask: 

What part of this problem is actually within my authority? What can I influence? Who else has authority? Do the people involved accept the proposed change? And do they have the ability to implement it? 

This sounds simple, but it changes how I work. 

Instead of trying to solve a large problem at once, I can break it into smaller components, identify where I have space to act, test a small intervention, learn from it, and then decide what to do next. 

I also learned not to depend only on formal authority. Throughout the course, I saw that authorization can grow through trust, communication, relationships, and demonstrating progress. My own reflection was that authorization is not simply receiving formal approval; it is also about building support throughout implementation.  

This is particularly important when working across several government entities where no single person controls every part of implementation.  

I am already applying these lessons to my work. 

I am communicating more intentionally with stakeholders instead of focusing only on technical requirements. I am trying to understand their concerns before proposing solutions. I am also thinking more carefully about how I communicate progress to management and authorizers. 

Most importantly, I am trying to make implementation a shared responsibility rather than the responsibility of one person. 

The course also made me think differently about delegation and sustainability. A program should not depend entirely on one individual. Knowledge, capability, and ownership need to be shared so that implementation can continue even when people or leadership change.  

This became very real during the course when changes in leadership meant that relationships with authorizers sometimes needed to be rebuilt. Our peer-learning discussions reinforced that implementation progress is not always linear and that changes in leadership and priorities can affect progress. What we can control is how we respond: rebuilding relationships, listening, adapting, and finding small opportunities to continue moving forward.   

If I could share one lesson with other public policy practitioners, it would be: 

Do not wait until you have the perfect solution to start implementing. Break the problem into smaller pieces, understand where you have authority and where you need others, take one practical step, learn from it, and keep adapting. 

As technical professionals, we can sometimes become very focused on creating the perfect policy, guideline, or solution. But implementation happens through people. 

Listen to the people who will implement the policy. Understand the people affected by it. Communicate differently with technical teams, managers, and senior leaders. Build relationships before you need them. And do not underestimate small progress. 

For my own challenge, the ultimate goal remains simple: make the healthy choice easier for employees. 

But my understanding of how to reach that goal has completely changed. 

A healthier workplace will not be created by a nutrition guideline alone. It requires leadership ownership, capable suppliers, supportive food environments, informed employees, good communication, and coordination across organizations. 

That is what implementation means to me now. 

This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 33 Participants successfully completed this 5-month hybrid program in September 2026. These are their learning journey stories.