Oil, Development and the Need for Reform

The Center for Arab Unity Studies published the book Oil, Development and the Need for Reform, by Dr. Ali Khalifa Al-Kuwari.

Despite the enormous financial resources that oil exports have provided for the Arab oil countries since the 1970s, this wealth did not bring about the paradigm shift that was likely to happen in those countries; whether in creating a diversified productive economic structure that could liberate these countries from the rentier system and the dependency on foreign countries, or in achieving social justice, human development and localizing technology and employment, or in establishing a national state governed by the constitution.

This book deals with issues of oil, development, and the need for reform in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It presents selected readings that include papers and research papers that the author believes that there is a need to re-publish at this critical stage that those countries are going through, given the theses and approaches that these texts carry that answer issues and problems that are still on the table in the Arab oil-producing countries and in the Arab countries in general. The book deals with some of the concerns of oil in the region and points to the paradox between the potential of oil and its development revenues, many of which were squandered and wasted, and the reality with which oil and its revenues were dealt with in the countries of the region.