Today, nearly 60 million people around the world have been forced from their homes, 40 per cent of whom originate from the Middle East. There are more than five million Palestinian refugees and four million Syrians who have been displaced outside their country. Another seven and a half million are displaced internally. An additional three million people are displaced in Iraq, bringing the regional total to over 19 million.
When I travel to visit our programmes, the experience of parents and children affected by emergencies and protracted crises consistently highlights the importance of education.
These children will one day be responsible for shaping and leading their nations as doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers and parents. Yet education accounts for a small fraction of humanitarian aid.
In 2014, only2 per cent of funds from humanitarian appeals were directed to education. Most funding is provided through short-term humanitarian appeals, but we cannot build an education system equipped to cope with a protracted crisis on the foundations of short-term and unpredictable funding cycles.
The Education Cannot Wait platform that was launched at the world humanitarian summit in Istanbul last month addresses this shortage of funding, and its unpredictability.
I strongly believe that a collective response to the current education crisis can ensure a more efficient delivery of quality education in these critical emergency contexts. The inclusion of the philanthropic community and the private sector in this group is critical to attract both the funding that is so desperately needed, and new skills and expertise to the sector.
Education Cannot Wait is timely. It is a collective response based on partnerships between donor organisations – be they public, private or philanthropic. Such partnerships deliver the necessary results required to meet the sustainable development goal of inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by the year 2030.
Dubai Cares has committed Dh 9 million ($2.5 million) over the next two years to the start-up phase of the Education Cannot Wait secretariat.
Another part of ensuring an improved response to education needs in emergency situations is to invest in the best methods.
At Dubai Cares, we use research to design and fund innovative and stimulating programs that test alternative models to increase the impact of the interventions we fund.
Monitoring, evaluation and learning helps us understand what works and allows us to adapt to changes, mobilise more resources, develop innovative approaches and better utilise funds.
One example of how we do this is through innovative partnerships. We recently partnered with the International Rescue Committee and New York University’s Global TIES for Children for an initiative that integrates low-cost learning strategies developed specifically for use in conflict-affected contexts to strengthen children’s cognitive, academic, and social skills.
We evaluate these strategies to build an evidence base about what works to improve children’s learning in these contexts.
Dubai Cares is now in the process of selecting a number of emergencies worldwide with an immediate need for an educational intervention.
At the summit, Dubai Cares has committed to further expanding the evidence base of what works in education in emergencies and protracted crises by spending 10 per cent of all its funding for education in emergencies on research and evaluations, and sharing the findings with our partners in the sector.
We also committed to increasing the share of our programmes that reach refugee and internally displaced children, as well as children of host communities, to 33 per cent of our financial portfolio over the next two years.
Education gives us hope. It makes us more resilient. It makes us stronger. We cannot allow more than 34 million out-of-school children and adolescents living in conflict-affected countries to grow up hopeless, vulnerable and fragile.
We cannot rob them of their potential by not allowing them to be educated. We have to act now. Education cannot wait.
Tariq Al Gurg is chief executive officer of Dubai Cares, the global philanthropic organisation that focuses on education in developing countries, which is a part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
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Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
RESULT
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Bayern Munich 4
Leverkusen: Alario (9'), Wirtz (89')
Bayern: Coman (27'), Goretzka (42'), Gnabry (45'), Lewandowski (66')
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The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
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2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The bio
His favourite book - 1984 by George Orwell
His favourite quote - 'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance' by Derek Bok, Former President of Harvard
Favourite place to travel to - Peloponnese, Southern Greece
Favourite movie - The Last Emperor
Favourite personality from history - Alexander the Great
Role Model - My father, Yiannis Davos
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
