YCH hosts symposium with Dr. Mahmoud Jibreel as special guest [Archives:2004/725/Community]

Hassan Al-Zaidi
The Yemen Consultation House (YCH) held last Sunday at the organization's headquarters in Sanaa a symposium that hosted prominent Arab strategist and training expert Dr. Mahmood Gabriel along with Dr. Ali Mansour Saffa' Minister of Vocational and Technical Training and was attended by Dr. Abdulhadi Al-Hamdani, the Chairman of YCH.
In the symposium, which was attended by prominent officials, businessmen, and intellectuals, Dr. Mahmoud gave a one-hour presentation on the situation of the Arab world and global changes taking place. He focused in the first part of his session on the overall trends in the world and the importance paid by Western countries to training and human development, in total contrast to Arab countries, whose regimes and communities lack of interest in technical and vocational training, causing higher rates of unemployment due to lack of qualifications needed in this era.
He proceeded by pointing out the economic, educational, political, social, health, environmental, and other indicators of Arab countries and compared them to the rest of the world. According to statistics revealed in his presentation, Arabs ranked almost last among all world nations in terms of education, technological advancement, freedom, human rights, scientific research, and many other aspects.
In conclusion, he emphasized the need to rehabilitate the Arab world to start steps that would stop the deterioration in human skills and begin the upward trend to compete with other nations.
“Globalization has already reached an advanced stage in which market economy is dominating, democracy is the trend, and advanced robotics are the future.” he said.
“If we don't wake up and realize this, our situation will worsen and our developmental efforts will be jeopardized. We have to focus on education, technical and vocational training, academic and scientific research, empowerment of civil society, promotion of freedoms and involvement of the public in decision making.” he added.
Following the presentation of Dr. Mahmoud, Dr. Abdulhadi Al-Hamdani, head of YCH also gave a presentation on the importance of training and how globalization and market economy have played a role in changing the way countries think of the priorities they need to tackle to cope with the global revolution. “We must realize that in today's world, technology, education and scientific research are of major importance and to compete we must promote them. If we do not do so, we will be left in the blue.” he stressed.
Dr. Al-Hamdani focused on the requirements to enhance productivity in the Arab world and use modern facilities and computers to cope with the ever increasing demand for qualified staffers in companies locally and abroad.
“When we look at the gloomy numbers of our situation in the Arab worlds as presented by Dr. Mahmoud Jibreel, we would realize how hard we should work to be able to compete with other countries. We must focus on human resource development because humans are the pillars of comprehensive development.”
Following Dr. Al-Hamdani's presentation, Dr. Ali Mansour Saffa' Minister of Vocational and Technical Training also gave a speech in which he identified the efforts of his ministry in promoting vocational and technical training to Yemenis and the strategies and plans set up to produce more qualified laborers. He identified the difficulties the ministry faces in terms of financial and technical resources, but insisted that efforts are being exerted to promote the Ministry, whose establishment, in itself, was a clear example of the commitment of the government to support this sector.
The one-day symposium included rich discussion sessions and was followed by a luncheon.
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