RAND-Qatar Policy Institute to host panel discussions during anniversary event

The event will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. at Education City in Doha.

The event will include two panel discussions. The first panel is titled "RAND-Qatar Policy Institute's Research and Analysis Efforts in Qatar and the Region" and will be chaired by Michael Rich, RAND executive vice president and co-chair of the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute Board of Overseers. It will showcase RAND work on health and the environment, as well as on education reform and human capital development.

The second panel, titled "The New U.S. Administration: RAND Perspectives on the Likelihood of Change in Issues and Policies Affecting the Middle East," will highlight the most pressing challenges the next U.S. president will face in the region. The panel will be chaired by Karen Elliott House, a RAND trustee, member of RAND-Qatar Policy Institute Board of Overseers, and former publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

This panel will feature two senior RAND analysts with extensive governmental experience. Robert Blackwill, a RAND senior fellow, served as U.S. ambassador to India and deputy national security advisor during the current Bush administration. David Aaron, director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy and a member of the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute Board of Overseers, was deputy national security advisor during the Carter administration, helping to organize the negotiations that led to the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978.

At the event, the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute also will release a new report titled "Facing Human Capital Challenges of the 21st Century: Education and Labor Market Initiatives in Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates."

The study answers three main questions: What are the human resource challenges each country faces? What education, human capital, and labor market reforms have recently been implemented or are under way to address these challenges? What mechanisms and information are used to assess whether reforms are meeting their objectives, and is there evidence of success?

Established in Education City in 2003, the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute is a collaborative undertaking of the RAND Corporation and the Qatar Foundation for Education Science, and Community Development. RQPI analyzes complex policy problems and helps both to develop and to implement enduring solutions for clients across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.