Dubai Cares, WEF to boost future skills for 15mln people by 2021

DUBAI- Dubai Cares, part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has announced a new strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF) during its annual meeting in Davos, to support the reskilling revolution, in a bid to provide skills to 15 million people by 2021.

Dubai Cares’ US$1.5 million in funding will be equally allocated to two critical three-year programmes managed by WEF’s Centre for the New Economy and Society, CNES. The CNES vision is to build dynamic and inclusive economies and societies that provide a future of opportunities for all.

One of the programmes focuses on identifying future skills and preparing the education and training systems accordingly, while the other focuses on codifying these future skills in order to transition from the current degree-based into a skill-based labour market.

The first programme, ‘Closing the Skills Gap: Preparing Education Systems for the Future of Work’, aims to build a network of public-private partnerships in 10 countries, initially, to be increased to 15 national economies by 2020, over half of which will be in developing countries. It is set to focus on the demand for future skills and prepare education and training systems to meet the demands of today’s job market. As part of this, the programme seeks to invite participating companies to make public, measureable commitments to train and reskill the current and future workforce. The second programme, ‘Shared Vision for Talent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, aims to address the growing mismatch between the supply and demand of future skills in the labour market.

The programme seeks to make this model operational by working with key business players, top universities and the EdTech community. The Dubai Cares delegation, led by Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer, attended various high-level events and meetings during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, which included the Co-Impact luncheon on collaborative philanthropy, hosted by Bill Gates, the UNICEF meeting on the role of young people in the fourth industrial revolution, a high-level roundtable discussion on refugee education organised by Save the Children and Community Jameel, as well as the Varkey Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) receptions.

The delegation also had a number of bilateral meetings with both corporate and philanthropic partners.