Facing Human Capital Challenges of the 21st Century Education and Labor Market Initiatives in Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates

The authors found that while the study countries have instituted reforms to their education and training systems that are designed to raise the skills of the population, and have made changes to the labor market and economy aimed at facilitating the use of human capital in diverse sectors of the economy, a disconnect remains between implementing reforms and evaluating them to ascertain whether they are having the intended effects. In many cases, reforms have only recently gotten under way, so it may be too early to measure their impact. In other cases, however, the lack of systematic assessment stems from gaps in the data needed to track the effects of policy changes. If policy evaluation is made integral to reform, the countries in the Arab world will have the information they need to make the best investments in their human capital in the decades to come.