Tamkeen: Supporting the Private Sector Through Training of Bahrainis

Interview with Dr Nasser Ali Qaedi, Head of planning and business development of Tamkeen

In February, several people demonstrated here in Bahrain, demanding free election, democracy and more job opportunities, among other things. What do you feel is the greatest challenge that faces the Bahrain labor market and what should be done to provide more job opportunities for the Bahrainis?

Bahrain has been going through a rapid state of development over the past decade, a common development happening in the region at large. We are seeing a lot of growth opportunities that have developed and the government is trying to develop a platform whereby you have institutions that can compliment this growth and development.

A lot of that has to do with building confidence in the way the country is progressing and going forward. As you can see by visiting Bahrain, there are a lot of initiatives happening that are trying to spur private sectors development and growth.

Also, trying to empower the private sector to emerge as the engine for growth in the economy, as a part of this objective there needs to be a complimentary effort for institution building. This is what the government has been trying to do under the direction of His Majesty the King, the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince.

We are trying to build the necessary institutions that will allow for a sustainable process of growth and development in the country. So that where we have economic development we have complimentary social and political development.  Along those lines, Bahrain has been very aggressive towards its economic development plans alongside ‘Vision 2030’ that was spearheaded by His Highness the Crown Prince.

A major part of the ‘Vision 2030’ is job creation and creating quality opportunities for Bahrainis. Tamkeen is a product of this effort to try to spur growth and development. We are trying to enable and empower the citizens to create opportunities for themselves. Attempting this wherever Tamkeen and institutions like Tamkeen can act as a facilitator for their growth and development.

When we look at the challenges, we see that the pace of development is going quite quickly so there is a need, as a complimentary measure, to ensure job creation and to see the ability of Bahrainis and nationals to fill up those jobs and create opportunities and career paths for themselves. Additional effort needs to be given to compliment that change.

Tamkeen is an independent authority which formulates strategic and operational plans to enhance the prosperity of Bahrain by investing in Bahraini employing ability, job creation and social support. Tamkeen is also funded by the fees collected by the MRA. Can you tell us more about Tamkeen, its mission and its strategy?

Tamkeen was created as a part of the overall reform process initiated by His Majesty the King, the Crown Prince and key rolled by the Prime Mister and the rest of the government to act as a facilitator to enhance the overall prosperity of the Bahraini economy.

Tamkeen’s primary mission can be categorized into two areas, one is to enhance the quality of the job market and support the training and development of Bahrainis to meet the needs of the private sector in order to train and develop them to be more compatible with the needs of the economy. At the same time to enhance productivity in the private sector and businesses and ensure that businesses are in a position to grow and develop and emerge as key drivers of economic activity.

Tamkeen’s roll is basically to be a key facilitator in this effort. We will be looking to such issues as productivity enhancement and training and development as these are national issues. Tamkeen as one organization is putting all its resources towards driving that agenda.

Obviously we are not alone in the market; we have other partners that we deal with, it is compulsory to deal with other government entities and bodies to ensure that we are able to achieve our mission because our mission is a national mission. Our role is to try to evaluate any area of opportunity where Tamkeen can get involved to achieve those two objectives.

We know that Tamkeen has tackled employment for Bahrainis, can you give us some practical examples that would be more visible for our readers and viewers?

At Tamkeen, when we develop our programs, we often look at the needs of the economy and the needs of the businesses. In the end all of our beneficiaries are Bahrainis. How we try to approach things is, through a collaborative effort, we work through the private sector, we work with individual businesses to try to determine their needs and requirements and subsequently Tamkeen goes into strategy building and trying to define potential approaches or approaches that Tamkeen could develop to resolve those issues or support activities within either specific businesses or sectors as a whole.

Along those lines we develop programs and activities to tackle specific types of problems. So we have a different inventory of programs that are designed for productivity enhancement and improving prosperity and growth for enterprises and we have a different series of projects that support human and capital-centric types of activities.

Once we define those programs, we work with partners to implement those projects and try to achieve maximum impact. Within the full spectrum of types of projects that we could venture into we would ideally look into the ones that would have the most impact on Bahrainis and businesses at large.

You also look at how you can bring the best and most widely recognized accreditation to the country. Which accreditation would you most like to attract to Bahrain?

The guiding principle in every we do as an organization is that we try to strive for the best in international standard, whether it’s training or other business support certification or assessment that need to take place.

We often look at what is the international best practice, so our mission is not just to support productivity and have a human capital from a Bahraini-centric point of view, but we look at it from a global standpoint.

We would like Bahrainis to be productive from global standards, to have the capabilities and competencies of Bahraini human capital to be on a global standard. We look at what the best standard is in specific fields and we follow those.

Can you give us some examples? Which sort of competency are you looking for, which fields, which sectors?

If you look at the activities with which Tamkeen aligns itself, which is very close to ‘Vision 2030’ in Bahrain economic strategy. Tamkeen falls very closely in line with these strategies and we work with the government in trying to priorities activities in growth and development. If we look at specific areas, such as if we are trying to enhance the financial services sector, there is a lot of efforts put forth from multiple government agencies and the private sectors to support this area. So we will generate programs or develop activities that substantiate that area even further. We will have a number of programs that are designed to enhance competency in the financial services sector, whether accountants or other related areas that could feed into the needs of the sector.

Tamkeen has a strong political backing, it currently generates $170,000,000 per year involving a number of high profile partnerships with the main companies operating in Bahrain. It’s also active in the organizational conferences and events, for instance, the Spring Organizational Conference. What is on your calendar this year, what are your priorities for 2011?

Tamkeen always has a packed agenda as far as activities it is trying to achieve, we have a lot of projects that we try to launch annually and we try to support a lot of efforts that are happening in the private sector. A lot of what we do depends on priorities that are in the private sector, so we look at the challenges and opportunities that are available in the private sector and try to support those initiatives and activities.

We have our own strategy that we follow and we have a lot of projects planned for this year, expanding existing portfolios of activities as well as launching new projects. We also try to keep very active in terms of events and activities that are designed to support profile efforts that are being undertaken in the private sector to stimulate human capital development and stimulate productivity.

The example that you mentioned was the ‘Innovation Conference’ that we had in Bahrain which was a major conference, the first of its kind in the region. It was designed to enhance and profile the innovation agenda for the country, whereby we are looking to support and enhance the ability of businesses to look beyond the now to future products, services and development activities; research abilities and so on as a means of enhancing their abilities to grow and develop and emerge and evolve into the key components of Bahrain’s economy going forward.

Do you have any examples of events you have planned for this year?

We have a number of projects in line, we have a strong productivity agenda which we are looking to work with governmental agencies including the Bahraini Economical Development Board, as well as projects to stimulate trade fairs in the country, promote the business presence in various governances in the Kingdom and stimulate commerce and other activities. We are hoping to develop on this track as well as other sets of projects.

Do you have any new strategies or projects planned for this year, something you haven’t done in the past?

Tamkeen recently updated its strategy, from 2010-2014, its second strategy, which will function as an extension of the original one where we have integrated much of the requirements of the new national strategy and those of the 2030 Vision.  We’ve also looked into new areas of Tamkeen involvement, for example,  a couple of areas Tamkeen is adding additional focus to in the new strategy is relating entrepreneurship   and promoting entrepreneurship support and developmental schemes that will enable job market entrance to, not just look for jobs, but have the opportunity to create businesses of their own.

Tamkeen sees entrepreneurship as a key enabler of economic growth and this is where the innovation agenda kicked into that, innovation is a strong link to entrepreneurship and trying to get a new breed of businesses and companies and developments to happen in the country through a stimulation of entrepreneurship, supporting business angels and adding additional focus to our existing programs as well to enable those activities, such as Tamkeen’s finance scheme and other related support areas.

Tamkeen’s main objective is to make Bahrainis the employees of choice and support high quality private sector job creation. Do you feel that foreign investors and companies find sufficient numbers of trained Bahrainis and what are the qualitative and quantitative effects this has had on the social development of Bahrain?

Foreign investors play a key role in Bahrain’s economic growth and there are a number of projects that are currently being developed in the country by local and foreign investors.  Tamkeen acts as a facilitator, it provides assistance to these companies in collaboration with the Economic Development Board, to identify and lead them to local talent. Something we are proud of at Tamkeen and as a country is the availability of skilled and competent talent in Bahrain.

Tamkeen’s role is to nurture that talent, make sure they are suited to fit with the needs of new businesses and projects in the economy.  Our role is to make sure the presence and availability of competent talent is always there.

Fortunately, we can say that Bahrain does have a strong, capable and competent talent base to work with. We are there to nurture that and, as an additional layer of support to integrate that talent with any projects that are happening.

When you look at Tamkeen’s overall impact and role in activities, we, as an organization, are relatively young, our mission is quite large, at a national level, and so a lot of the things we do are dependent on what is happening in the country, so we are constantly trying to benchmark our activities and how impactful we are. This is why in the new strategy we have created we are much more focused on generating direct impact to the individual and to the country and we hope, as we progress, our impact will be much larger.

How can foreign investors join with you in the problem of the Bahrainis?

When we approach foreign investors, and many of the companies we are working with are large, well known companies looking to set a footprint in the region select Bahrain as a base of operation. With these companies come certain types of standards and activities and certain standards for what employees they want and how they would like to train those employees and develop them within the organization. So we have to work with these companies and try to embed those practices within the industries that they operate in.

This is the key aspect of FDI, because it is not only the investment that comes in it, it is the skills and knowledge that is brought in. At the same time the work culture that is brought in by these companies, many of the charge companies that come in have specific work environments and different types of career paths and opportunities that they provide to their employees. So we work with them to try to transfer that culture into Bahraini industries. We work with them to make sure their criterion are met and try to make sure that Bahrainis benefit from the cultures they are bringing in.

To conclude, I would like to know your dream for Bahrain. Where do you see yourself if five years?

When we look at all activities that have been happening in Bahrain and in the region as a whole over the past decade, you see a lot of projects and activities, developments and reforms taking place. Much of this has taken place over a very short space of time relatively speaking with all the developments that have taken place. When you look at the extent of projects and developments that have taken place in Bahrain you see a good path forward towards building the institutions and confidence and support that is required for building a healthy and sustainable socioeconomic system for the country.

 Our hope as Tamkeen, as we see ourselves as part of that effort, is to accelerate that push and to ensure that that dream happens much sooner than people think. This is why, as an organization, we think that we must be aggressive. We must ensure that we are constantly there to act as a fruitful leg of support to the private sector and the government as well. We hope that these reforms and activities and projects that are happening all complement each other in a way that enhances what we are trying to do and, at the same time, helps the private sector, helps the economy act as its own fuel for development, requiring less involvement from Tamkeen, that we have an healthy and stable economic system that is being developed as we speak.