Country Office Director of the ILO Doha Francesco d’Ovidio and President of Higher Education and Education Advisor QF Francisco Marmolejo signing the agreement.
Doha, Qatar: A new partnership designed to produce evidence-based insights that help to guide the future development of Qatar’s workforce has been formed between Qatar Foundation and the International Labour Organisation.
Data and findings from Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Alumni Impact Study – a large-scale survey tracking employment outcomes, career trajectories, and perceptions of graduates from QF’s universities over the past 25 years – and other labour market-related studies will be used by QF and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to develop five co-authored policy briefs.
briefs – representing the first formal publication initiative between QF and the ILO since the establishment of the ILO Project Office in Qatar in 2018 – will result in policy-focused insights for the nation’s decision-makers, providing recommendations that support Qatar’s human capital development goals.
The five areas that will be addressed through the partnership are bridging skills gaps and mismatches between alumni and employers; national talent retention; the extent to which Qatar’s higher education system supports entrepreneurship; how higher education in Qatar can better align with the needs of the labour market; and how to advance gender equality and inclusive employment in Qatar.
The partnership was formalised through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between QF and the ILO during the recent WISE 12 Summit in Doha, hosted by QF’s global education initiative WISE.
President of Higher Education and Education Adviser, QF Francisco Marmolejo, said: “QF’s unique education model provides us with deep insights into the factors that shape meaningful student and alumni outcomes.
“This collaboration with ILO enables us to generate evidence-based perspectives aimed at advancing knowledge by contributing to practical policy recommendations that support workforce development and social progress in Qatar and the region. In addition, the QF-ILO partnership will support structured dialogue with key national stakeholders to strengthening alignment around areas of national importance such as skills development, graduate pathways, and inclusive employment, as articulated in Qatar’s Third National Development Strategy.”
Country Office Director of the ILO Doha, Francesco d’Ovidio said: “This partnership marks the first formal collaboration between the International Labour Organisation and Qatar Foundation, and we hope it will be the first of many. By collaborating with QF, gaining structured access to the anonymised dataset of the Alumni Impact Study, the ILO will be able to apply its global analytical frameworks and comparative labour market expertise to generate concrete, evidence-based policy recommendations for Qatar.
“These insights will directly support the ambitions of Qatar National Vision 2030 and the objectives of Qatar’s Third National Development Strategy, helping to advance a knowledge-based economy, a future-ready workforce, and labour market policies that are firmly grounded in decent work principles. We look forward to deepening this partnership and contributing to Qatar’s long-term human capital development.”
