Second National Development Strategy to ensure economic prosperity of Qatar

Qatar’s Second National Development Strategy (2018-2022), launched by HEthe Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser binKhalifa al-Thani yesterday, has outlined a national strategic roadmapfor the next five years, after mobilising efforts to guide theactivities and resources available to meet the national priorities setfor this period, and thus making it clear that the economic prosperityof Qatar will be sustained through the development of economicinfrastructure, economic diversification, private sector development,natural resources management, human development, sustainable socialdevelopment and sustainable environment development.The new strategy is characterised by the addition of a new chapterdealing with global partnerships for development, which aims tostrengthen Qatar’s role at regional and international levels, raise thelevel of international partnerships and contribute effectively toregional and international peace and security. The strategy also included a new chapter on strategic performancemanagement, which is also considered as a compass to monitorimplementation, ensure smooth and efficient follow-up, and to knowobstacles and work to overcome them in a timely manner, taking advantageof the lessons of the first strategy to focus on results and outputsthrough monitoring key performance indicators to determine the safety oftheir implementation.According to the strategy book issued yesterday, efficientimplementation of the national development strategy will continue to besubject to modernisation of the public sector and upgrading itsperformance, in order to complement the efforts exerted in thisdirection and the transition of the implementing government entitiesfrom the state of recognising the importance of planning as a tool toachieve the results, to the regular application of institutionalpractices in the preparation of the executive plans, medium-termstrategy and annual output plans.The new strategy book said that its preparation was influenced by theemerging conditions in terms of government structure and economicdevelopments, the number of sectors was reduced from 14 sectors in thefirst strategy to eight sectors in the second strategy, organisedaccording to the four pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030.The second national development strategy (2018-2022) addressed the mostimportant challenges facing the first national development strategy(2011-2016). Through a broad participatory process, the second nationalstrategy, adopted the national priority development agenda for thecoming years to the end of 2022, by emphasising and re-evaluatingnational development goals, identifying obstacles and re-evaluatingpriorities, lessons learned and what can be achieved on the ground.According to the new strategy, Qatar will focus during the next fiveyears on reforms in the area of policy and motivation, and enhanceproductivity at all levels, and devote efforts of economicdiversification, and participants in the second national developmentstrategy are expected to focus on strengthening their institutional andorganisational capacities, formulating incentive frameworks and policiesto attract the private sector, enhancing their contribution to thelocal economy and enhancing productivity in all its dimensions. The new strategy seeks to achieve its objectives driven by expectationsthat the real economy will grow during the period (2018-2022) by theactivities of the non-oil and gas sector, especially in the sectors ofmerchandise and traded services, while the rationalisation of governmentspending in this period will balance the public financial balance ofthe country, and facilitates the creation of a wider space for privatesector activities.The second National Development Strategy stressed that maintaining theeconomic performance of Qatar to achieve the goals of its NationalVision 2030 should be institutionally linked to sustainable developmentprogrammes and plans. The strategy noted that despite the greatlegislative and regulatory efforts to consolidate these values,achieving sustainability requires continuous and integrated effortsbased on outstanding international experiences, as well as vigorousefforts to build national economic capacities, both institutional andhuman, and to preserve them as a national wealth and heritage for futuregenerations.According to the strategy, the sustainability of the economic boomrequires more investment in the economic infrastructure, which in turnwould raise the efficiency of the economy and expand its absorptivecapacity, avoid bottlenecks and increase its competitiveness.It cautioned that although many achievements have been made in theeconomic infrastructure sector such as transport, communications andinformation and the supply of electricity, water, sanitation andconstruction networks, it is difficult to determine the extent to whichthey meet the economic and human needs and the efficiency of operationand maintenance.In this context, the strategy cited international indicators, includingthe infrastructure index, in which Qatar ranked 18th out of 138countries in 2016, and the logistics performance index in which Qatarranked 30th out of 160 countries in 2016. The strategy, however, calledfor action to overcome future challenges facing the economicinfrastructure sector by developing a supportive infrastructure for thenational economy that is sustainable, high quality and able to keep upwith the latest technology systems.This can be achieved through the provision of sustainable water,increasing the production of traditional and renewable energy, recyclingof project waste, more co-ordination among relevant governmentagencies, particularly in the identification of project priorities, theexact size of their investments, the expected demand and the issuance ofappropriate legislation, as well as the provision of data and technicalcapabilities of human cadres, and addressing issues related toelectronic security, according to the Strategy.