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INTERNATIONAL

the adults, and UNICEF did the one spending a lot on their people,
for the children. This is scary. building infrastructure and tech-
The second scary part is that the nology, developing technology,
middle class Arab countries are and they send many young people
trending down, not up. This is a to study abroad, so they are invest-
dangerous trend. When the World ing. This is an investment for the
Bank and IMF characterize a coun- future.
try as a middle class country, with
the future trend not going up but Q: Listening to you, one gets the
down, it means that the spending impression that the region has
on education and on health is not great potential.
getting its effective dollar value. For I think so. The worst part of it is
each United States dollar spent, 65 really the conflicts. If you get the
cents goes to administration and conflicts resolved, I think coun-
not to real education, not to real tries will progress. Let us take Iraq
health care. There is still a lot of as an example. Iraq went through
bureaucracy built in, and our job conflict for years - Iran, Kuwait,
at ESCWA is really to streamline all the embargo, the change in 2003
this, and provide the Arabs with the and the war against terrorism
capacity to they need to realize that Once you give the Iraqis a cer-
education is a must. Children's edu- "There is still a lot of tain amount of stability, I think
cation is especially important, and the Iraqis have the ability to move
it must be modernized - not an old bureaucracy built in, and very quickly, and they have tre-
curriculum but, new technology, mendous resources.
how kids will utilize the new tools ourjob at ESCWA is really
and technologies for education. It is Q: In Iraq, you used to be the best-
a lot of work. to streamline all this..." educated people, and you have
everything - water, farm land, oil
Q: Obviously the various Arab countries are also quite and human resources.
diverse, some extremely rich, whereas others are poor.
Well, having a high GDP does not mean that you have a Education is the part we are worrying about because it is
sophisticated society underneath. I think of the middle of still very traditional and has not been modernized. This
the road, where Iraq, Egypt and Morocco could trend up is why I discussed with Mr Gurry of WIPO how to get
with their background of human resources. The countries research and development where we hook up the private
that are weak - Sudan, Mauritania, and Yemen - they are sector and the universities. That is what we are trying to
all struggling through these next years. do with WIPO: link the private sector and the universi-
ties, so that intellectual property moves into the universi-
Q: I just heard that now one can find young Saudis ties from the private sector and vice versa. That is how
working in areas where one never thought they would Japan did it, it is how South Korea did it too. Lebanon
be working. and Egypt are actually doing well in this area as there are
It is true that Saudi society is actually going through huge some entrepreneurs who came directly out of college.
transformations. I think the young leadership is impor-
tant, and they are opening up the road for women and Q; I have the impression that most businesses in the Arab
children as well for young educated countries. World are small and medium enterprises, mainly family
owned ones. Is this correct?
Q: Do you think this will be the same in the Gulf coun- Yes, I am meeting many entrepreneurs with small shops
tries? - 10 to 15 employees. Now they are starting on services
The Gulf countries are much smaller. The Saudis have a -software development, 3D printing - things where they
population of 30 million, whereas the Gulf countries have can provide services to hospitals, to financial institutions,
much smaller populations. Kuwait is doing extremely you will see a lot of young people coming up.
well. They are creating tremendous infrastructure to take
care women and children and young graduates. In addi- On these optimistic words, Mr Under-Secretary-General
tion, a lot of money is going into institutions. had to rush off to his next meeting, and we are confident
The Gulf area countries are spending lots of money on that Mr Aihakim will be able to put ESCWA back on the
their human resources. The United Arab Emirates are map.

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INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMAT - DIVA