Qatar’s Vision 2030
From localization to building national capacity towards Qatar’s Vision 2030
Editors:
Dr. Hend Abdalrahman AL-Muftah, Vice President of Administration and Finance, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar
Prof. Allam Ahmed, Director, Middle Eastern Knowledge Economy Institute (MEKEI), United Kingdom
This book “From localization to building national capacity towards Qatar’s Vision 2030” aims to significantly contribute to Qatar’s capacity building of its local nationals through its heavy investment and continuous reforms in education, training and labour market. More specifically, the objective of this book is to develop a process to identify and build the most significant capabilities required by Qatari nationals to achieve Qatar’s Vision 2030. In turn, it is excepted that this will help Qatar to develop and orient its future human capital in line with its vision of 2030.
This book is a flagship initiative to document the current settings of Qatar’s human development, mainly education, labour market and human resources and its affects, positively or negatively, on the capacity building of Qatar’s nation to lead and accomplish its vision of 2030. The book therefore puts together, for the first time, original and cutting-edge contributions aimed at illuminating and charting new directions for researching, teaching and understanding of this subject matter.
Manuscripts, in the first instance, should be forwarded to:
Allam Ahmed and Hend Abdalrahman AL-Muftah (Janet.Snow@wasd.org.uk).
Deadline for abstract submission: 17 January 2021
Deadline for FULL paper submission: 17 April 2021
- Human development: to enable all of Qatar’s people to sustain a prosperous society to meet the needs of this generation without compromising the needs of future generations.
- Social development: to maintain a just and caring society based on high moral standards and capable of playing a prominent role in the global partnership for development.
- Economic development: to achieve a competitive and diversified economy capable of meeting the needs of, and securing a high standard of living for, all its people for the present and for the future.
- Environmental development: to ensure harmony among economic growth, social development and environmental protection.
It is very clear that human development stands as priority amongst QNV 2030, which without or with any shortage or lacking, the other three pillars are either difficult to achieved or not even accomplished. Accordingly, Qatar’s National Development Strategy (QNDS) 2011–2016 came as a first action for QNV 2030. It presents new initiatives while building on what already exists.
As a result of QND 2030, Qatar will continue to invest in its people so that all can participate fully in the country’s social, economic and political life and function effectively within a competitive knowledge-based international order. It is putting in place advanced health and education systems that meet the highest global standards. It is also supporting the productive participation of Qatari men and women in the labour force, while attracting qualified expatriate workers in all fields, with a growing emphasis on the higher skilled.
Therefore, it is very clear that among the most crucial challenges in meeting QNV 2030, stands the issues of education and human resources taking into account the small size of population and hence labor market. As the Qatar economy diversifies from its reliance on gas and oil, success will depend increasingly on the ability to compete in a global knowledge economy. Continuing substantial investments in educating and training of Qataris will be critical to achieving the goals of the QND 2030.
Qatar has made great strides towards creating a world-class education system, through the Education for a New Era reforms, begun after the Supreme Education Council was established in 2002, and the reforms of Qatar University, begun in 2003. In addition, Qatar Foundation’s Education City has continued to expand and progress over the past decade, with the establishment of a cluster of top-class international universities that are helping to make Qatar a regional leader in innovative education and research. However, such progress is still questioned in terms of its effectiveness in building local citizens’ skills and competencies required for knowledge-economy for QNV 2030. Further reform of Qatar’s education and training system should address quality, effectiveness and efficiency of their outcomes to the labour market. These themes will guide policy decisions with more oriented and targeted actions.
On the other hand, at the micro level, the human resources practices need to be developed in more professional manners in order to lead such crucial vision of 2030 into reality. In this regard, for example, the Qatarization policy is not a strategic policy at the macro level of the country although it has been established as strategic programs in many leading organizations in Qatar since early 1980s. Till today, it is still scattered efforts between government, some leading organizations mainly the oil and gas sector, and other non-cooperating organization in the absence of sold laws and regulations.
In additions, other HR practices as recruiting, training and development is also still lagging behind a strategic macro-level policy to promote the human development pillar of Qatar’s vision 2030.
The book is divided into several section- organised around four parameters which essentially reflect the Qatarization and Qatar’s Vision 2030. The divisions: Capacity and strategic building; Qatarization; talent management; and labor market are intended to allow for both ease of comprehension as well as reflection.
Suggested topics
- Background (brief chapter about Qatar, QNV 2030, QNDS 201-16 and 2018-2022) From tiny in size country into huge in influence.
- Qatar’s demography.
- Politics (and soft power).
- From rentier state to diverse economy.
- Educational reform.
- Labour market reform (including kafala).
- Educational and labour market partnership.
- National human capital building (Qatarization programs since its issuance at all sectors in Qatar).
- Civil society role and influence.
- Identity change.
- Human capital in the knowledge-based economy.
- Sustainable development strategies and policies to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- National strategies and polices to combat Covid-19 pandemic the new normal working practices post Covid-19.
Pedagogical features
In keeping with the high standards of books that also serve as texts for student and research audiences this text intends to overcome many of the weaknesses that are ascribable to many texts such as being densely conceptual. These weaknesses have often made them unsuitable for classroom usage at both undergraduate and post graduate levels. This text therefore intends to subscribe to the following pedagogical considerations:
- Consistency in structure content and general flow will be managed by editors working very closely with contributors to ensure.
- Each chapter contribution will consist of clearly specified aims/learning objectives, properly defined terms and concepts, illustrations that are of real-life/short cases, relevant end of chapter review questions, useful further readings, etc.
As a consequence, the edited text will have a clearer positioning and be more market oriented in terms of the targeted audience needs.