Flat note

If modern jazz can be characterised as 'variations on a non-existent theme', then this year's World Economic Forum on the Middle East was the perfect 'improv' session.

Yet when the meeting's official premise is as formless as 'Learning from the future', it is difficult to quantify its success or otherwise.

"You don't immediately see tangible results from these kind of meetings," Prince Andrew, one of the forum co-chairs and the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, told reporters at the opening of the WEF.

Although he qualified this by adding that he expected the benefits to become apparent over the coming "few years", it was a telling statement that rather captured the mood of this year's conference.

When HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, unveiled his US$10bn education fund by the Dead Sea last year, the forum gained pace.

This year there was no such catalyst - the co-chairs were commanding and concise, framing key issues and presenting a platform on which others might build, but the forum lacked a keystone upon which to truly focus the minds of so many high-powered delegates.

Even the main event - a speech by US president George W Bush - failed to ignite the masses.

"He's the same as he is on TV, just a bit smaller," one delegate opined as she squinted to pick out the diminutive figure at the podium. The speech didn't help either: a facsimile of a hundred others the outgoing president has delivered over the last few years.

There were a few high notes amid the murmur of muted messages and management-speak. Laura Bush and her Egyptian counterpart Suzanne Mubarak joined forces to celebrate the international launch of the Egyptian Education Initiative, a project launched two years ago and through which over US$80m has been invested in the professional development and training of students.

In schools and universities nationwide, 40,000 PCs have been deployed, more than 185,000 training programmes have been delivered, and 2000 schools, 17 universities and 400 education centres have benefited from its direct impact.

Mohammed Alshaya followed his impassioned call for the private sector to step up to the challenge of job creation with action - the retailer has launched a summer internship programme for 1000 young Kuwaitis across its franchise operations, and announced plans to open a female-only department store in Saudi Arabia, the first time a major chain has established an entire store just for women in the kingdom.

The best hour-and-a-half of the forum went hands-down to a final-day extravaganza entitled 'Is the Gulf Crash Coming?', which over-spilled its one-hour slot to the extent that the final session was delayed.

"In the last century 400 British civil servants oversaw the whole of India; today Kuwait has 400,000 government employees," noted Zain CEO and deputy chairman Dr Saad Al Barrak in a particularly withering assessment of Gulf governmental efficiency.

The Arab Business Council is back too, albeit with a polite cough as opposed to a showstopping homecoming. Restructured, repopulated and reinvigorated, the group will resume its mission to enhance the economic competitiveness of the Middle East business community after its split from the WEF last year.

Under the leadership of National Bank of Kuwait CEO Ibrahim Dabdoub, big things will be expected of an organisation that has drawn a good deal of criticism over the past few years.

Yet despite those few highlights, it seemed that the majority of delegates left this year's forum feeling a little bit flat.

Andrew White is the deputy editor of Arabian Business English.

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