The President of the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) and Chairman of the Permanent Population Committee, H E Dr. Saleh bin Mohammed Al Nabit (pictured), has said that the average years of schooling in Qatar has doubled over the past two years, and the expected number has also risen.
He said that the life expectancy at birth has risen, with maternal mortality rates falling to a rare or almost non-existent level in the country.
“It means Qatar has achieved the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the fields of education and health ahead of time, and has also achieved other goals related to other areas,” said Al Nabit during his key note speech at a ceremony to celebrate the Qatar Population Day under a theme ‘Population Policy between Reality and Hope’.
The event was attended by the Minister of Culture and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, along with a number of officials in the bodies concerned with population and development issues, and representatives of United Nations Population Fund.
Al Nabit said that the Human Development Index issued by the United Nations Development Program for 2018 ranked Qatar in the 37th place out of 189 countries included in the report.
His Excellency said the most important achievements accomplished during the two years of the implementation of the population policy derived from the Qatar National Vision 2030 and from the second national development strategy, especially in the areas related to population, expatriate manpower, education and health.
“The results of the second phase (November 2018 - October 2019) of the stages of follow-up of the implementation of this policy indicates that a package of related measures have been implemented in whole or in part, which along with other factors, have led to a decline in the rate of population growth,” said Al Nabit.
He said that the results also show the strengthening of the trend towards modernization of the means of production in order to rationalize the recruitment of unskilled labor and to secure adequate housing for expatriate workers.
He said that despite the realistic achievements mentioned, there is a need to do more to achieve all the goals and objectives of the population policy of the State, he said, stressing that the biggest challenge is to correct the demographic imbalance, which is an obstacle to achieving all the goals of this policy.
Advisor to the Minister of Culture and Sports for Strategic Affairs Dr Mohammed Ismail Al Ansari pointed out that Qatar is multicultural due to the multiplicity of communities in it.
He noted that with reference to Qatari history and community practices, they found that Qataris regarded pluralism as a source of strength, cultural enrichment and social stability, which was reflected in the internal cohesion during the blockade.
For his part, the representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the GCC, Aser Toson, praised the commitment of Qatar to the global agenda for sustainable development and the commitments it requires on the level of population development.
He stressed that the Population Policy of Qatar is a continuation of this approach as it reflects the themes of the second national development strategy and takes into account human development and promotes women’s rights and reproductive health.
