Last Updated: Jul 16, 08:44 pm
Category: General News
London Business School has hosted a major conference on leadership and skills in the Middle East in conjunction with the Middle East Association. Speakers included representatives from a number of Arab countries including Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Egypt and Libya.
Marc Stephens gave a regional overview of issues confronting the Middle East in the areas of economic development, education and organisational capacity. The presentation provided a framework for assessing the differing skills and employment needs of Gulf economies (highly dependent on guest labour and oil resources) on one hand and eastern and southern Mediterranean economies (surplus national labour supplies and no or little oil).
In the case of the Gulf countries the challenge is raise the skill level of national populations from that of a $3000 per capita GDP economy to levels required in a $30,000 economy in order to enable Gulf Arabs to access highly skilled jobs.
In the highly populated, poorer countries, by contrast, the challenge is to improve the business environment to create more jobs, to avoid the overproduction of university graduates for whom there is no demand and to boost vocational skill provision.
Using live examples from OpenCities’ experience across the Middle East in the areas of economic development, education and organisation building, Marc’s presentation provided the 300 plus delegates with the conceptual tools needed to understand local issues in a wider context.
Leadership and skills in the Middle East.pdf
