UAE have traditionally been the weaker of the associates, because they're all accountants and bankers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Netherlands and Ireland have the professional set-ups but all these T20 and World Cup qualifiers they play have them playing some pretty organized, quality level of cricket. It's certainly not like it used to be years ago and I said in another thread one of the main reasons for this is the quality of cricket that Ireland play means all the games the "Associates" play against the Irish has them all being leveled up by default, for lack of a better term. Ireland are, essentially, the team all the associates measure their success by in those tournaments.
There's a reason why Afghanistan have come out of nowhere in the past 5 years and it's simply down to the strength of the competition between the Associates, driven by the professional cricket outfit that is Ireland.