Introduction

Traditional paradigms in development have viewed advanced technology as the culminating phase of industrialization, modernization, and economic diversification, rather than as a means to increase long-term growth and competitiveness in countries confronting significant economic challenges. The reliance of the GCC states on petroleum exports has left national fiscal and monetary policies highly vulnerable to price shocks, which commodity stabilization funds and sovereign wealth funds have ameliorated only in part, and inhibited the development of a robust private sector.

There are very few historical instances of deliberate national transitions to advanced technology across multiple sectors prior to the advent of widespread private sector development. In each case, it was a strategy of last resort pursued by countries, such as postwar South Korea, post-independence Singapore, and, more recently, post-conflict Rwanda, lacking natural resources, friendly neighbors, political stability, or an existing industrial base. In each such case at the urban level, such as post-Cultural Revolution Shenzhen and 1990’s Hyderabad, they were experimental strategies selected by cities lacking access to natural resources and stagnating economically. Despite these extraordinary successes in long-term economic development, they are frequently dismissed as anomalies, and their early and rapid transition to advanced technology is largely ignored, rather than proffered as a model for regions whose natural resources, political stability, and trade relationships enable them to stave off short and medium-term social unrest, environmental degradation, and economic decline.

The initiatives to transition to post-carbon economies in the GCC can be realized most rapidly, effectively, and securely through the promotion of high-technology industries across sectors; these include bioinformatics, nanotechnology, genomics, and solar and geothermal energy. The widespread funding of academic and private research laboratories, strengthening of intellectual property rights, extension of critical regulatory, financial, and tax incentives to technology entrepreneurs, and international recruitment of top-flight scientists and technologists will foster increased international investment in the region, accelerate the development of a high-skilled labor force, increase knowledge transfer and collaboration between GCC universities and their international counterparts, advance efforts towards environmental conservation, and promote national economic self-sufficiency and sustainability.