The literature has highlighted so far on the criticality of the human resource factor and its linkage to success by organizations and governments as well. The next section will elaborate on the importance of the HRD as an essential investment for the successful implementation of QNV 2030, and the steps that should be undertaken by Qatar’s government to benefit the most of the HRD.
2.4.1 HRD: Essential Strategic Investment
According to NAMA (1983), a country progresses and develops through the effective use of all of its scarce resources, and the use of these scarce endowments remains circumscribed by the specific development and utilization of its human resources. Human resource development (HRD), as NAMA (1983) pointed out, draws appreciable levels of national effectiveness from an expanded context of knowledge, skills, and capacities of all the members of society. NAMA (1983) further averred that HRD can be viewed from an economic, political, social and cultural, education, or training perspective. From an economic viewpoint, HRD relates to human capital formation, the approach by which the capital is distributed in various departments in the nation and its effective infusion in the development of the economy. In its
39 political essence, HRD enables the integration of wide sectors into the new political systems, mobilizes social and political activities, and aids people to demonstrate responsible participatory behaviours as citizens in the political practice. Based on its social and cultural implications, HRD also provides the people with the necessary awareness which later helps to lead and live more meaningfully and intellectually away from ignorance, laziness, prejudices, and superstitions. In its public administration strand, HRD purveys knowledge, skills, and attitudes, as well as motivations, for government officials to cope with the necessity of change and the challenge of development.
According to the elaboration of NAMA (1983) in the conflation of development variables and modern society’s goals, the HRD, sustained by education, assumes centrality and becomes a vital enabler of society’s goals. According to Seers (1970, p 143) “education creates modernity in polity, economy, society, and culture.” Adam Smith in his pioneering work (i.e. The Wealth of Nations) has also recognized the value of skills and efficiency (i.e. human capital formation) in achieving national prosperity, stating in his words that: “The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person. Those talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so, do they likewise of that of the society to which he belongs” (Smith, 1937 p 103).
Feldman et al. (2014), echoing Sen Amartya’s (1999) representation, described economic development as the process of energizing and activating autonomy and substantive freedoms so that individuals can be actively engaged in economic activity. The authors suggested that people become dynamic agents of change and development as they acquire new competencies, heighten productive capabilities, and maximize economic utility. As more people get engaged in the economy, the opportunities for changes and improvements increase, with society becoming a high performing nation strategically provisioned with sustainable capacity. In ascertaining where a particular nation is in the economic development roadmap, several metrics like Gini coefficients, distribution of income, per capita income, quality of life index, life expectancy, criminality, and other indexes are used by policy makers and development practitioners. For Sen (1999), the core purpose of the economic development
40 pertains to minimizing human deprivation or expanding the range of human choices; while to Seers (1979), economic development seeks the reduction of poverty, inequality, and unemployment – varying thought perspectives on economic development focus, but both works supporting the vitality of human development on economic development sustainability (Nafziger, 2006). Amplifying Sen’s (1999) view on deprivation, Narayan (2000) shared that deprivation is a multidimensional notion of poverty that covers hunger, illiteracy, illness, poor health, marginalization, non-representation, embarrassment, and insecurity for which a person may lose the capacity and opportunity to contribute to society.
Harbison (1973), Kaboolian (1998), Daisi (2011) and Aluko and Aluko (2012) had all described the importance of human resources’ concept and its development on national economic health in a representation that bespeaks of human resource as the basic rationale for the wealth of a country. The authors stressed that resources are passive production inputs, while human beings function as active agents who raise and mobilize capital, leverage natural resources, and develop social, economic, and political structures. Moreover, the authors argued that any country that fails to build the skills and knowledge of its human elements in the process of national economic development will also fail to achieve in any other endeavors. In current reflection of human development as a strategic driver, the Asia-Pacific Economic Community succinctly emphasized the value of human resource development arguing that: “to truly compete in the global marketplace, APEC economies must continue to search for innovative human resource development strategies. In addition, the demands of the global economy require that we go a step beyond effective education and training efforts to strategies that incorporate human resource development into larger economic strategies” (APEC, 2015, p.1).
From a problematic point of view, Kuruvilla and Ranganathan (2008) similarly reinforced the human resources’ strand on the sustainability of economic development advantage. The authors described how India grapples with four human resources policy issues that rock the strategic growth corridors of the country’s outsourcing industry: (1) two macro problems relating to skills shortage and the failure of India to build the needed level of skills in support of the long-term growth and sustainability of the outsourcing industry; and (2) two micro issues concerning the extraordinary high levels of employees’ turnover and employees’ cost
41 spiral. Sharif, Ahmed, and Abdullah, (2013) illuminated the Bangladesh economic growth scenario where relevant studies indicated positive correlation between human resource development activities and the economic growth process; and as an adjunct of the human resource development strategy, significant investments have been made in education to secure the sustainability of the intended economic transformation. Complementing Sharif, Ahmed, and Abdullah’s (2013) representation, Sanchez and Cicowiez (2014) propounded that better levels of education and healthy population help nations achieve collective productivity.
In the midst of diverse strategic prescriptions on human resource development as a fulcrum for national transformation, Qatar appears to be making a significant headway according to the national report conducted by the State of Qatar and published by the United Nations (2014) as between 2000 and 2012 Qatar made remarkable progress to attain high human development, as measured by UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI). This composite index is defined in terms of three dimensions (i) to have the capacity to live a long and healthy life; (ii) to be educated and knowledgeable and (iii) to have access to assets, decent employment, and income.
The country advanced to 36th out of 187 countries in the world in 2012, compared to the ranking 51st a decade earlier. Qatar has progressed relative to the world’s top five countries. In terms of the three component dimensions of the HDI, Qatar now ranks the second highest globally in the GNI per capita index, 13% above the top five countries, and its achievements in health care are exemplary. However, Qatar’s results in the education dimension still lag markedly behind the world’s top five countries.
Based on the same report published by the United Nations (2014), it was revealed that “84% of persons living in households in Qatar expressed that they were either very or somewhat satisfied with their lives” (State of Qatar, 2014).
2.4.2 Policy Implications: HRD as a Strategic Investment
From this research comprehensive presentation on the importance of HRD as an investment frontier in national development policy direction, the key indicative treatises summarize as:
(1) Human deprivation and expansion of the available range of human choices (Sen, 1999) (2) Reduction of poverty, inequality, and unemployment (Seers, 1979); and
42 (3) Current human resources development problems of India in its long-term economic
development blueprint (Kuruvilla and Ranganathan, 2008).
These three factors directly impact Qatar’s policy framework because: Qataris are mainly deprived of the right quality of education for which their range of choices are unnecessarily lessened. Furthermore the inequality and marginalization in the labor force must be contained because they undermine job placements for Qataris and the subsisting India’s problems with shortage of local skilled manpower and high employee turnover spotlight the same predicament of Qatar. This study argues that any Qatar policy enunciation intended to address the triple issues currently raised must carefully reconcile the national urgency, the impact of the existing problems and the prevailing capacity of Qatari government to resolve them. The political, economic, and social conditions in Qatar, including cultural implications, can be used to test whether QNV-2030 has been premised on specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bounded goals. Qatar’s inadequacies in institutional frameworks, management skills, and labor force quality can replicate the Indian problems in Qatar over an extended dimension, which calls for further needs’ analysis and deeper focus on human resources development policy formulation. Nonetheless, based on the report issued by Qatar’s Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics jointly with the UNDP (2015), Qatar appears to be making headway in human resources development, which findings tend to conflict with other reports on a flawed educational system, marginalization of Qataris in work placement, lack of skilled manpower, and high employee turnover – factors which could affect citizens’ satisfaction.