Talent is 'new oil' in Middle East

TALENT WAR: More initiatives like Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology are needed to improve the region’s educational structure.

Countries across the region must focus more on education, enhance their engagement with the rest of the world and attract more investments if they are to empower their own people and “win the global talent war”, the World Economic Forum (WEF) heard on Tuesday.

“Talent is the ‘new oil’ in the Middle East. In spite of disparities in population and distribution of wealth among countries, the region as a whole maintains an equilibrium between the working population and the non-working population," Ayman Haddad, managing partner at research firm Heidrick & Struggles said during a session titled ‘Managing mobile talent.’

"This will make the Middle East and its talent the envy of ageing countries like those of Northern Europe, Japan and the United States.”

With 65% of citizens under the age of 25, “the region needs to generate 280,000 more jobs every year to employ its fresh graduates. So, enough work exists to harness the economic potential of talent, the challenge is to make talent manifest itself… there should be a positive change in our attitude to life-long learning,” Haddad said.

More initiatives like Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology were needed to improve the region’s educational structure, he continued, adding: “As long as our brightest and our best people are leaving our shores to be educated abroad we are intrinsically at a disadvantage.”

Education will naturally lead to better engagement with the rest of the world, and help cut through stereotypes and prejudices about the region, Haddad said.

“Investment is another requisite for talent to bloom and it matters for two reasons - investment equals money and money equals talent," he said.

"Talent follows the money and money comes with big ideas. Currently the Middle East attracts only 2% of the direct foreign investment in circulation today; this should increase dramatically.

“If we can integrate imagination in the boardrooms and classrooms of our region then we are well placed to deliver on the potential of our people over the next three decades.

"The new generation in the region has big ideas and we should allow them to dream. Otherwise petro dollars and oil will smother our attempts to diversify,” Haddad concluded.

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