Human development achievements of United Arab Emirates : implications on sustainability of economic diversification strategy

Abstract EN

The Human Development Achievements of the United Arab Emirates assesses human progress in the country based on the dimensions of knowledge, life expectancy, and a decent standard of living.

The human development index is the geometric mean of the normalized indices for each of the three human development dimensions.

This study utilizes the Human Development Index (HDI) of UAE as a comprehensive measure of human development and analyzes the relationships of its dimensions on the national diversification strategy of the country and its implications.

The overall performance of the UAE economic diversification strategy over a period from year 2005 to 2015 is represented by the Real GDP growth for non-oil industries in the country.

The study is significant to policy makers and economists, through the new insights and concepts generated from examining these dimensions to create an overall score for the country’s level of economic and human developmentthat influence the success of the UAE economic diversification strategy which the country pursues for sustainability in the long-run.

Correlation Analysis is used to determine the relationship of UAE HDI value with the strategy.

Analysis of Variance calculates the variability levels of the dependent variable of economic diversification and determines a basis for significance tests.

Multiple Regression Analysis determines how strongly each of the three independent variables (dimensions) influence the dependent variable, the strategy.A trend of the UAE human development progress and sustainability of the diversification strategy in the long-run is established by Time Series Analysis with lagged variables.

Findings reveal that the HDI rating of UAE is very high due to the increasing trends in the three dimensions that are provento be significantly related to and singly or in combination strong predictors of the strategy which is also shown to be continuously providingconsiderable support to the growth of the non-oil industry and expected to contribute to sustainability of economic growth in the long-run.Furthermore, the human development achievements of UAE have significant implications to the successful implementation of the economic diversification model.

It is recommended that continuous monitoring of the level of progress of the dimensions identified to have significant relationships with the strategy and shown to be strong predictors of the success of the economic diversification growth model, and conducting further research on other predictors not included in the study but likely to influence the success of the strategy.