The worst diplomatic crisis in the Gulf for years has left experts scrambling to interpret its causes. The air, sea and land blockade of the State of Qatar, announced on June 5 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, has dramatically escalated tensions in the region which will not be simple to resolve.
The co-ordinated move by the four Gulf states came in retaliation for Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism, which the country denies, and its perceived growing closeness to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival. Turkey strongly opposed the move, and rushed through approval for a long-planned deployment of Turkish troops on the peninsula.  
As a long-standing friend of Qatar, it is not my intention to comment on the political dispute, which others are better placed to analyse. But it is worth highlighting Qatar’s outsized contribution to world affairs and the extraordinary philanthropic work which the country has undertaken over the last two decades, in both the region and around the world. 
Qatar is classified by the UN as the most advanced Arab state for human development. Before the discovery of oil its economy depended on fishing and pearl diving. Today, it is the wealthiest country in the world, per capita, thanks to its natural gas and oil reserves. 
Qatar has hosted peace talks among rival factions across the globe and pursued a peace deal in Afghanistan. One of its most significant achievements was the signing of the Doha Declaration in 2011 which became the basis of the peace process in Darfur.
In June 2013, His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani became the Emir of Qatar, following a peaceful transfer of power from his father. The young Emir has declared his commitment to establishing advanced health and education systems and expanding the country’s infrastructure in preparation for the hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
A powerful force for progress has been the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, established by His Highness the Father Emir in 1995 and chaired by his wife, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. The foundation has established Qatar as a leader in education, science and cultural development. 
Qatar has made enormous investments in education. It has brought eight international universities – six from the US (Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Northwestern and Virginia Commonwealth), one from France and one from the UK – to the region and has provided them with world-class facilities in its hub, known as Education City. 
Universities that are thousands of miles apart in the rest of the world are streets apart in Qatar. Moreover, Qatar has guaranteed academic freedom. In doing so, it has embraced important enlightenment values in a culturally conservative, predominantly Muslim society.
The rise of Education City has especially benefited young women from Muslim families whose parents were reluctant to send them abroad. More than 40% of Texas A&M’s students in Qatar are women, a much higher proportion than are found in many US engineering programmes. 
Under Sheikha Moza’s leadership, Qatar Foundation established the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) and the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), which I chair. These international summits, attended by thousands of global experts in their fields, have created a unique platform that brings together ministers, industry leaders, policymakers and academics.
In the field of medicine, the foundation also established the Sidra Medical and Research Center for Women and Children, a state of the art hospital opened in 2016 which is the first of its kind in the Middle East and planned as a resource for the whole Gulf region. Community initiatives are focused on social support for Qatari families, and programmes to prevent and manage diabetes, whose incidence is high.
Qatar has invested heavily in culture and the arts. Cultural initiatives include the founding of the Qatar National Library, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and the Arab Museum of Modern Art, which has perhaps the finest collection of its kind anywhere in the world.  
The overall aim, as outlined in the Qatar National Vision 2030, is to transform the country from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. This matters, not only for the future of Qatar, but for the future of the Middle East, and ultimately the world. The stakes are high not just for Qatar, but for all of us that want to see the region make the progress it needs.  

*Professor Darzi is a surgeon, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, and Executive Chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of the Qatar Foundation.

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