This section provides a description of the State of Kuwait in terms of its geography, Language, population, economy and public organisations; this also includes the public higher education institutions.
Geography
Kuwait is located in the “Middle East” in the south west of Asia. It is located to the south of Iraq and north east of Saudi Arabia. The total area of Kuwait is 6,880 sq. miles (17,819 sq.km). Historically the Al-Sabah family rules Kuwait and the ruler of the State is a “sheikh” who is referred to as the “Ammeer” the Prince of the State of Kuwait. (Information Please Database, 2010). See Figure3.1 (Map of the state of Kuwait)
“© OpenStreetMap contributors” Figure 2: Map of the State of Kuwait
(Licensed as CC-BY-SA, opendatacommons.org, 2013)
Population
The State's population, as recorded in government statistics up to March of 2013, is 3,861,081 – which is less than half of the population of London. The majority of the population is made up of foreigners as they represent nearly two thirds (2,639,581) of the population in Kuwait while Kuwaiti citizens represent nearly a quarter (1,221,500) (PACI, 2013).
Language
Arabic is the official language of the State of Kuwait and is the language that is spoken in government. English is the State’s second language as it is taught in schools from grade one and is therefore widely spoken and used (Kuwaiti offshore service, 2011).
Economy
become one of the largest oil producing countries in the world. It is considered to be one of the richest countries and to have the highest standard of living in the world (Kuwait Information Centre, 2004; Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2013). Kuwait also has oil reserves of about 102 billion barrels or 7% of the total oil reserves in the world.
Despite its prosperity and wealth, Kuwait is classified as a developing country (not to be confused with third world countries). Generally developing countries is describes a nation with a low level of material well being. The levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries as some developing countries have high average standards of living (Princeton University, 2013), Kuwait being one of these high living standard countries. Moreover, Kuwait’s economy is immensely reliant on expatriate workers for many of the skills required by the country for successful economic development efforts. It is a nation of over 3.8 million residents of whom over 2.6 million are expatriates who come to Kuwait to gain experience then migrate to developed countries Aladwani (2002). In other words expatriates play a major role in contributing towards Kuwait 's economy.
Due to Kuwait’s classifying among the developing countries, it is expected to report on its progress achieved in realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Country reports on the MDGs are expected to provide an input into the UN Secretary General’s global report on MDG progress. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the directing agency on monitoring advancement towards achieving the goals in collaboration with UN agencies, other UN partners including the World Bank. The main purpose of the collaboration is to ensure a common assessment and understanding of the status of the MDGs at both the global and national levels (Ministry of Planning, 2003).
3.2 Public Organisations in Kuwait
As mentioned previously, Kuwait like other countries that signed up to the Millennium Development Goals agreement (MDGs), committed to achieve the MDG targets by 2015 (United Nations Development Program, 2005). One of the MDGs in Kuwait is the need to improve levels of human development, such as improving the public and private sectors, with more emphasis placed on meeting the global development network and in capitalizing
on knowledge and experience. Therefore, many efforts have been made to improve public sector organizations in line with the economic growth of the State, as well as to address growth and changes in knowledge to meet the MDG put forward by the Kuwaiti government (Kuwait Times, 2011).
Therefore, efforts to improve public sector organizations have centred on expanding financial investments and social developments in different public sectors. In 1973, the government supported one of the most important research institutes in the Middle East, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) (Al Fadhli and Johnson, 2006). This institute carries out research in a wide range of scientific areas relating to industry, energy, and agriculture that contribute to the social and economic development of not only Kuwait, but also the other Gulf countries and the rest of the Arab World (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, 2000). Therefore, It would be beneficial for such an institution to coordinate with regional and international research institutions to raise research outcomes. KISR has become directly responsible for carrying out applied scientific research that is related to national economy in order to help the economic and social development of the State of Kuwait. Furthermore, it has been engaged in developing and implementing new technologies in its organisation in order to develop electronic data and resources to upgrade the Institute’s capabilities and support decision making (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, 2000).
It is anticipated that research organisations and academic institutions could coordinate with research institutions by allowing researchers to coordinate in exchange for financial benefits and support, these research projects can be available through OA technologies. It is worth noting that the economic/cost factors were not mentioned in detail in this study as PAAET is funded and supported by the Ministry of Finance of the Kuwaiti Government.