The 2015 Doha Conference: Findings from the Student-led Public Diplomacy Program
Table of Contents
Author(s)
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Fellow for the Middle EastAriana Marnicio
Former Research AnalystTo access the full paper, download the PDF on the left-hand sidebar.
Introduction
Twelve students from Rice University traveled to Doha, Qatar, between February 27 and March 7, 2015 to take part in the Public Diplomacy and Global Policymaking (PDGP) 2015 Doha Conference. The PDGP is a joint initiative between Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Qatar, which generously provided funding for the PDGP. The Rice students were selected competitively out of a pool of almost 50 applicants and all took the spring semester PDGP course at the Baker Institute. Over the duration of the course, each student identified a research project based around the four key themes of education, energy, gender and equality, and health. The Doha conference provided an opportunity for the Rice students to present and discuss their work-in-progress to an audience of Qatar-based students and practitioners. The issue briefs in this volume represent the outcome both of the Doha conference and of the spring semester research projects.
The 2015 Doha conference was the product of the Baker Institute’s continued collaboration with the Qatar Foundation and HBKU. The PDGP program was designed to introduce students at Rice and at HBKU to major public policy trends in U.S.-Qatar relations. The study week and student conference in Doha during Rice spring break constituted the capstone of the PDGP, designed to bring together the Rice and HBKU students in an intellectually rich and congenial formal and informal setting. Faculty talks at HBKU and study visits to key entities both within Education City and Qatar University added a significant practitioner-led element to the PDGP that offered course participants the opportunity to explore and deepen the policy impact of their academic research. Spending the week at the Qatar Foundation’s flagship Education City campus also permitted the course participants to view at first-hand the sheer scale of infrastructural and sector-specific investment that has positioned Qatar at the forefront of higher education initiatives in the Gulf.
This volume presents the 12 issue briefs drawn up by the PDGP students during their research in Houston and in Doha. The issue briefs contain a combination of theoretical and empirical insight into critical public policy themes together with pragmatic and scalable recommendations for policymakers both in the United States and in Qatar. The PDGP Doha conference was invaluable as a tool that enabled the course participants to road-test initial ideas and generate substantive new leads for further research over the second half of the semester. An additional advantage of the PDGP group was their multidisciplinary background, which facilitated the exchange of ideas and perspectives across traditional academic boundaries—as reflected in the depth and breadth of the issue briefs contained herein.
As noted above, the 2015 Doha conference was structured around four themes identified as having public policy relevance both for Qatar and in Houston. The study week began with a visit to Qatar University—the oldest institute of higher education in Qatar rooted in the establishment of a College of Education in 1973. A meeting with the president of Qatar University, Dr. Sheikha Abdullah al-Missnad, set the tone for the rest of the week as the PDGP students engaged Dr. al-Missnad in a wide-ranging and frank discussion of public policy challenges and trends in Qatar. Both the meeting with Dr. al-Missnad and the subsequent walking tour of Qatar University provided the PDGP participants with an invaluable overview of the state of public education in Qatar.
The four subsequent working days were spent at Education City in the architecturally impressive and brand new campus of the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS), which acted as the host venue for the conference. Each day of the conference featured three student presentations and a faculty discussant followed by a keynote address from invited speakers from the Qatar Business and Finance Academy, Ooredoo Qatar, the Doha International Family Institute, and the Supreme Council of Health. Site visits to the U.S. Embassy in Qatar, the Aspire Zone academy and park, a farm, and the Qatar Foundation radio station provided further opportunities for the students from Rice and HBKU to bond and network in a more relaxed setting, as did a visit to the world-renowned Museum of Islamic Art and a dhow cruise around Doha’s bay on the final day of the trip.
The volume begins with three issue briefs on education. Dante Zakhidov examines K-12 education in Qatar and questions why the ambitious educational reforms introduced in the early-2000s fell short of initial expectations and failed to generate sufficient buy-in from key stakeholders. Zakhidov emphasizes that educational reform should be seen as a long-term, intergenerational process of change, and makes a series of short- and long-term recommendations that absorb the lessons of the past and strengthen design-process leadership moving forward. Jennifer Ding focuses on youth entrepreneurship in Qatar and the importance of reducing legal barriers, connecting institutional resources, and shifting societal views toward risk for creating a sustainable start-up ecosystem and laying the foundation for future entrepreneurial growth. Ding observes that a local ecosystem that draws together Qatari citizens, institutions, and government will be pivotal if private sector development is to underpin the long-term policy objectives of Qatar’s Vision 2030. In her issue brief on rethinking Qatar’s global education initiatives, Madeleine Tibaldi explores how Doha’s establishment as a regional education hub has functioned as a major component of a larger state-branding strategy that has well and truly placed Qatar on the global map. Tibaldi recommends that Education City, and the Western institutions within it, develop into an organic part of Qatar’s educational landscape and integrate more closely into Qatari society.
Part II features three briefs on energy issues in Qatar. Caitlin Laird begins with an analysis of the geopolitical and economic gains of Qatar’s international investment in foreign project holdings and their contribution to economic diversification and thickening linkages with global partners. Laird suggests that Qatari policymakers utilize the current state of flux in world natural gas markets to expand the country’s role from that of producer to investor and capitalize on strengths within the Qatari energy sector to boost its intellectual and managerial reputation internationally. Bo Kim addresses the challenges that face Qatar’s solar energy policies and questions whether and how Qatar might position itself as a regional leader in solar power. Kim calls on officials to increase the role of the private sector in developing solar projects in order to incentivize innovation and international cooperation and thereby resolve two technological challenges currently facing Qatar’s solar industry. Sevita Rama shifts the focus to the issue of accessibility in the urban landscape of Doha and to the challenges facing people with disabilities as Doha’s cityscape continues in its phase of rapid expansion ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Drawing on comparative case studies from the United States and Beirut, Lebanon, Rama highlights the public policy imperative of integrating accessibility into urban planning and development for Doha’s further expansion.
The issue briefs on gender and equality start with a study by Rebecca Satterfield of the challenges and possibilities that women in public life in Qatar face. Satterfield examines how educational achievement and female role models such as Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser, the wife of former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, have helped to empower female participation in public life in Qatar. Noting the crucial importance of mentorship and networking to further success, Satterfield recommends that the U.S. Embassy work with Qatari officials to develop programs that connect aspiring women leaders with those already in leadership roles. Maithili Bagaria explores mechanisms for promoting the participation of Qatari women in the private sector and unlocking their full potential. Bagaria calls on the Qatari government and employers to create attractive policies to encourage women to seek jobs in the private sector and, in turn, underpin Qatar’s transition into a knowledge-based economy. Part III ends with an issue brief by Sandra Lopes on the transition of women from higher education to the workforce. Lopes makes a number of suggestions both for government and civil society organizations and recommends that a dedicated government body be established with the resources and the authority to facilitate this transition.
Part IV rounds out the volume and focuses on health. Jesal Shah analyzes whether current breast cancer screening practices are meeting the needs of women in Qatar and focuses on how challenges such as low breast cancer screening participation, late detection, and poor prognosis can be overcome. Shah recommends tackling sociocultural barriers and institutional shortcomings as well as building on collectivist ties and increasing awareness among vulnerable communities through top-level policy and physician-oriented behavior change campaigns. Chris Chu examines the role of lifestyle and dietary habits in the soaring rise in the incidence of Type II diabetes in recent years, which is a public policy problem across the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Among Chu’s recommendations are the creation of incentivized health policies, the design of effective nutrition and exercise programs, and campaigns to catalyze preventative changes in behavior. Shilpa Nataraj ends with an issue brief on the attitudinal and structural barriers in mental health access and delivery in Qatar that create a significant gap between those who need and receive treatment. Nataraj recommends a series of public policy initiatives that are necessary to reshape the mental health model in Qatar and design a clearer implementation mechanism for mental health strategies in the country.
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