Industries

Public Sector
Social Sector
Corporate Responsibility

Service Areas

Strategy and Planning
Program Development and Implementation
Organizational Effectiveness
Performance Management and Evaluation
Partnership Services
Business Process Outsourcing

Specializations

Education and National Skills Systems
Entrepreneurship
Cultural Development
Corporate Responsibility

Our Thinking

How Skills Surveys Can More Effectively Identify Workforce Skills Gaps
Through a multicountry review of skills surveys, we propose an alternative approach to establishment skills surveys that can play a more effective role in determining how workforce skills influence achievement of firm business objectives in the Arab World.
Using Social Networking for Change
We see IT as an important enabler for regional development, and we have worked with global technology leaders such as Intel and Microsoft to deepen the impact of regional development programs leveraging technology.
A Regional Institution for Improving the Quality of Education
There are many opportunities for synergies through cooperation between regional education quality programs as well as clear areas of overlap which can benefit from consolidation.
Using Awards Effectively for Social Change
Many award programs in the region focus on large monetary sums to award best practices. We argue that money is not enough, and award programs should reinforce social change through knowledge diffusion, network building initiatives, and follow on training to maximize social impact.
Increasing Female Labor Market Participation With Scholarships
In several countries in the Arab World, women face significant obstacles to obtaining higher education and entering the workforce. We propose an e-Scholarships for Women Initiative to mitigate access, equality, and labor participation challenges.

Our Contribution to the Debate


Rethinking Arab Knowledge-based Economies
Wes Schwalje, Chief Operating Officer, Doha, Qatar
Looking Beyond Standard Solutions

Seventeen of the twenty-two countries in the Arab World have the development of a knowledge-based economy specifically stated as a medium to long-term economic policy objective. In pursuing this objective, many countries in the region have made large state-driven human capital investments with the goals of job creation, economic integration, economic diversification, environmental sustainability, and social development.

Redefining the Policy Agenda

In our assessment of the effectiveness of Arab investments in human capital over the last decade, we find marginal progress towards high skill, high wage knowledge economies. We suggest that a disconnect between the skills developed in Arab skills formation systems and those required by private sector employers relegates Arab businesses to contesting lower-skilled, non-knowledge intensive industries which has stalled knowledge-based development in the region.