Should we Believe the Hype? A Story of how Disruption is Slowing Down Development in the Gulf

Once upon the time, in a land far away where the hype was heroic nobility, a little know noble man, happily and courageously, launched attacks against evil giants; to free damsels-in-distress or other helpless people. Tragically however, it turned out he was a fake night who imagined windmills to be enemies, and kept humiliating himself, his simple assistant, and his exhausted horse. To this day, this story; Don Quixote is still considered one of the greatest stories ever written. You might notice 3 similarities between this entertaining story and the story of our most recent HYPE- economic diversification in the Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, or the GCC: Struggling middle income families, a counterproductive cost cutting, and imaginary enemies.

1. Struggling middle income families: COVID-19 and automation could not have come in a more challenging time, as we experience the Youth Bulge, where “around 60 percent of its citizens are under the age of 30. It is predicted that the GCC's youth population will balloon to 65 million by 2030.” When we combine this youth bulge with a traditional scarcity mindset associated with tribal structures, that favors a closed group of elites, their relatives and business partners, when it comes to socio-economic upward mobility opportunities it is likely that middle income families will experience disruption. Mainly caused by experiencing the 4 main types of unemployment: Structural due skills mismatch, Frictional due to looking for other jobs, Seasonal due COVID 19 impact on tourism and other sectors, and Cyclical due to the modest investment in alternative sectors such as sustainability and the environment. There are many solutions to scarcity mindset in GCC, including for example an inclusive growth abundance mindset that offers fair and reasonable access to opportunity for all, in a way that shields and prevents middle income families and people, like Don Quixote, from becoming a victim of insanity and poverty in the first place, and provides them with a safety net.

2. Counterproductive cost cutting: Despite his noble big plan, of saving people in need the old and backward looking Don Quixote invested only in a street-smart assistant and an exhausted horse so he lost all his quests. Similarly, the GCC’s new Administrative Bodies obsessive focus on automation without reskillling and upskilling our workforce with cognitive and essential skills; is likely to end in losses. While budget cuts hit essential progress areas such education, health and housing, there is little investment in sustainable Healthtech, Edtech, Fintech and Advanced Manufacturing. Unfortunately, over the next 2 years we might witness the impact of the current global trade wars, resulting in 80 percent of our budget awarded directly to Multinational Corporations, or MNCs, from the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union who seek unfairly compete and suppress THEIR Asian competitors, mainly Chaina, but also Japan, Korea and ASIAN countries. Therefore, it is not likely that budget cuts will balance our budget as most of the cuts touch the livelihood of the disempowered the middle income families with: Little access to elite decision makers, little representation, little access to independent watchdog entities, little civil society advocacy, and little voice in the newly established traditional and empowered Governorates’s Council. Here, one solution could be impact investing; which means investing in purpose-driven business models that generate better business, social and environmental returns on our investments, or RoI, such as reskilling and upskilling people in areas such as Agritech, Healthtech, Edtech, and Fintech.

3. Imaginary enemies: There can be no progress without peace and safety. One of the most genius writers in the world Miguel de Cervantes brilliantly showed us how old Spain’s elites waged actual and propaganda wars that wasted so much of their people’s attention, wealth and energy, for literally hundreds of years, on imaginary enemies, that lead to atrocities against Muslims, Jews and native people of the Caribbean, South and Central America and the Philippines, while the attention of the decision makers and the public should have been directed to the welfare of their people and the prevention of the many outbreaks of famine, pandemics, and bloody feudal civil wars in Spain, Portugal and across Europe. An old Arab proverb says that “most fires start from the smallest sparks,” and the current GCC little yet vicious feuds and propaganda wars (using public and copy-paste “private” media outlets) are fueling shady deals, with unethical regional regimes, that are harmful, and are just unnecessary and expensive mass weaponization, espionage, domestic surveillance, and montization of the privacy against critical thinkers; whether they are citizens, residents and visitors.

At the end, Don Quixote retires to his countryside home and apologizes for all the insanity and harm he caused to others and renounces all his fake nobility “heroics”. We say in the GCC that we are focusing on “economic diversification” yet our action makes this seems as a mere hype. Now with automation affecting around 40 percent of almost all of our future jobs, and Corona Virus (including COVID-19 and the next pandemics) deepening social, educational and economic divides the time is now to contemplate better roadmaps. Perhaps, to start with, we shouldn’t wait until its too late to include all in socio-economic upward mobility opportunities, and we could greatly benefit future generations from sustainable impact investing, instead of cost cutting without critical thinking, and we should definitely avoid non-heroic and expensive feuds, and live in peace within and with one another, instead of spending what is left of our precious public’s fortunes on mercenaries to fight windmills.