Dubai School of Government and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government hold academic conference

The event marks the unprecedented collaboration between the two schools to share scholars and foster academic discussions about the Middle East.

"The Middle East: Between Economic Progress and Conflict" offered participants an opportunity to discuss the dramatic economic transformations in the Middle East, and in particular the Dubai model. Other topics of discussion included the prospects of economic development and reform, current regional conflicts and the changing balance of power in the Middle East.

This conference is the first among several joint academic and policy-making activities between the Dubai School of Government and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The current conference was supervised by Mr. Graham Alison, Director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Studies; Mr. Nabil Ali Al Yousuf, Executive President of the Dubai School of Government; Dr. Vali Naser, Senior Research Fellow at the Kennedy School's Dubai Initiative; and Dr. Tarik Yousef, Dean of the Dubai School of Government.

"This conference is a platform for debate and a more in-depth understanding of the issues in the region. There are a lot of opportunities that are available in the region in terms of things we can all do together to improve the well being of the region, and needless to say, that will result in a better world for all of us," said Mr. Al Yousuf.

Key speakers of the Conference included Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, Former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mr. Joseph Nye, Dean Emeritus of the John F. Kennedy School of Government; Ambassador Edward Djerejian, Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University; Mr. Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow at the Dubai Initiative; Dr. Mustapha Nobly, Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank; and Dr. Tarik Yousef, Dean of the Dubai School of Government.

"Our region is one of the most difficult regions, beset with all sorts of problems, so any opportunity to try and understand what is happening and perhaps do something about it is welcome," observed Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi Former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. "We have a serious problem in education in general especially in higher education so we are all very excited to get this school off the ground and I hope it will be followed by other initiatives," he added.

Commenting on the significance of the conference, Joseph Nye said, "We need to learn more. One of the things we hope is that our cooperation with Dubai will not only bring expertise from the Kennedy School to Dubai, but will bring knowledge from Dubai to the Kennedy School."

"Our belief was that the efforts being made by the government of Dubai to modernize and open up to knowledge around the world was very good for the Arab world in general, as well as for Dubai, and we are in the business of helping to spread knowledge," added Nye.

The primary objective of this initiative is to bridge the expertise and resources of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government with the Dubai School of Government and enable the exchange of students, scholars, knowledge and resources between the two institutions in the areas of governance, political science, economics, energy, security, gender and foreign relations in the Middle East.

"We do not just want to be another institution of higher education in the Arab world we want to be a cutting edge research and teaching institution" said Dr. Tarik Yousef. "We want to bring the best both from our end and from the end of other universities and institutions. I think that is where a good conference gets distinguished from an average conference," added Dr. Yousef.