Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in his address to the second Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg, made a passionate appeal to the world leaders, economists and thinkers to redouble their efforts to take enough precautionary measures to alleviate the pangs of a projected, imminent recession threatening the global growth in the aftermath of the purging COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Throughout the speech, H H the Amir has been calling for making the less privileged countries and poor people a priority while striving to overcome the economic hardships that experts in the financial sector has been forcasting. H H the Amir said: “Supporting the economy, investment and innovation in parallel with consolidating shared human values and peacekeeping is the way to build the necessary capacities in order to transcend crises and overcome challenges facing humanity as a whole such as the threat of epidemics and climate change which one of the most serious challenges that we face in our time”.
As always, the world has been listening with rapt attention to what the Amir says, because Qatar is known for keeping its words and what it says is always followed by practice. While most of the countries were perplexed when they were forced to stare at the unexpected pandemic besetting the world as it appeared out of the blue, Qatar was quick to act by supporting others, especially those countries for whom the resources needed to manage the pandemic were hard to come by. Qatar extended support to about 100 countries in the form of financial aid, in-kind help and essential medical supplies. Qatar Airways, the flag carrier of the country, never stopped flying during the pandemic, instead it has been busy transporting medical supplies, stranded people and COVID-19 vaccines.
H H the Amir also touched on the most crucial issue of sustainable and balanced development, which has been something world has been ignoring for some time now. In the past few years, when mother nature started warning the globe with different natural calamities and disasters, the question of environment protection got a sudden prominence to which environmental experts have been struggling to answer. But now we are realising that the only answer is focusing on balanced development by taking nature’s warning seriously and making sustainability the prime priority.
Amir reiterated his country’s position saying: “Qatar assumes its responsibility as an active partner in the international community to confront climate change in its various economic, environmental and social dimensions”. In this issue also Qatar is emerging a pioneering force by implementing practical strategies to reduce carbon emissions to new zero, promoting a circular economy approach and developing greener energy technologies.
