On The Quest For Economic Prosperity: A Higher Education Strategic Perspective For The Mena Region

Abstract: In a fast-changing technology-driven era, drafting an implementable strategic roadmap to achieve economic prosperity becomes a real challenge. Although the national and international strategic development plans may vary, they usually target the improvement of the quality of living standards through boosting the national GDP per capita and the creation of decent jobs. There is no doubt that human capacity building, through higher education, is vital to the availability of highly qualified workforce supporting the implementation of the aforementioned strategies. In other words, fulfillment of most strategic development plan goals becomes dependent on the drafting and implementation of successful higher education strategies. For MENA region countries, this is particularly crucial due to many specific challenges, some of which are different from those facing developed nations. More details on the MENA region higher education strategic planning challenges as well as the proposed higher education strategic requirements to support national economic prosperity and fulfill the 2030 UN SDGs are given in the paper.