Ministerial Keynote at Human Capability Initiative

[M137-01] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:00:03 · Ministerial Keynote at Human Capability Initiative · 2024-02-28 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

Wow! That's a big audience. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very proud to be with you here and I'm very much grateful for His Excellency Yousef Al-Benyan and his colleagues for inviting me to this event. I guess before I start, I was sneaking in the back stage hearing the conversation that was just taking place a while ago and I heard one of the participants in a commotion type of statement about education and how education is lacking and even making sure that people do know what is the capital of Saudi Arabia. Well, I have to assure him that not only the capital of Saudi Arabia but also Makkah, Madinah and Riyad they're glowing and shining in every map on planet earth. Now, in our ecosystem, that's what I call it the energy ecosystem. We amongst other sectors in Saudi Arabia, we are fortunate this time around that we are being KPIed. We have the strategies. We have the KPIs. We have the follow-ups in trying to see how much we're fairing in achieving our strategies. and how much we are enabled to achieve them and if we are enabled, we shall achieve them because it serves the very subjects which I would call it the subject of all subjects, the topic of all topics which is human resource development. eventually and primarily, I cannot conceive any development program that does not focus primarily on human resource development. I guess the measure and probably the most relevant measure in measuring up how a society is developed, it would have to be how much human resources have been developed, how much they've been given the opportunity to be educated, to be trained, to be able to fend for themselves. Now, our sector suffers from a sort of double whammy. I'm talking about the energy sector globally because it has been conceived for so many years that the energy sector has its own hardships which disallow female from participating so actually by global statistics on averages, basically every other sector has roughly around the 40%, 39 to 49% of female participation, while unfortunately with regard to the energy sector, I think the global number is around 15 % that actually gives us even in our case in Saudi Arabia the number is way much lower than even the 15% so the task that we have is mammoth, is difficult but it's due. That's why I know I want to take some time just to explain to you what we are doing to achieve that holistically, looking at the sector comprehensively and if you don't mind, I'll move with my presentation if the clicker can work. This is usually the kind of issues that the word goes through when looking at Human Resource Development.

[M137-02] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:05:03 · Ministerial Keynote at Human Capability Initiative · 2024-02-28 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

You still have an issue of youth attraction, working environment, working retention, and search for subject matter experts, knowledge transfer and female integration into the workforce. This is what we conceive ourself as a sector, not only our sector but also the additional pillars of how can we achieve that. You could see that our business lines are described at the top of this and then we talk about the government agencies, ministries, agencies that are involved with us. You will see that we don't identify ourself as a silo but we incorporate others that are working with us because I honestly believe that there is no chance and no relevance to the idea of working in silo. You will have to bring every other party being involved with you that can lend support and help and certainly when it comes to human resource development, I honestly believe that there is no chance. There is a fat chance that you do things without Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor but also, we incorporate educating institution or training entities in again ensuring that we achieve our strategic focus, which is the workforce planning and orchestration, capability building attraction and retention and again female empowerment. I have to confess that this is the subject that I take special interest in. Not only myself but our leadership and you just have to look at around into this stage and the back stages and you would see how effective over the last five- or six-years women empowerment has been; and I am sure that if you visit us again every year attending to this event, you will see how much women empowerment has been taken seriously. Now, the way we will achieve it. We have an Oversight Committee. It Is chaired by myself and it encompasses every government agency that we have anything to do with it, including the ecosystem government agencies. We certainly have Technical Advisory Committee and it is bundled into oil, gas and petrochemical clean hydrogen, carbon management and power renewable of course and nuclear and each team will be working across the below tracks, which is higher education and research and development, technical what they call them the TVET programs and the professional training. I don't want to get into the very details because of the time limitation. Again, you could see that we are in this chart, we try to make sure that people understand and comprehend that we are much more focused on as I said the holistic workforce planning, the capability building and the awareness of attraction that is to go even to schools. We have a program called Mishkat at K.A.C.A.R.E. We go to schools. We go to universities. We reach out to every corner in this country, trying to advocate and attract youth at the early stage intriguing them to have some ambition with regard to the energy sector.

[M137-03] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 10:15:00 · Ministerial Keynote at Human Capability Initiative · 2024-02-28 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

This is what we are going to try to achieve. We're using this approach just to give you an idea of how we are thinking and how much it is being collaborated. We see somewhere around 150,000 jobs being created including not only working in chemical plants and what have and what have you or renewable facilities but also we see a lot of jobs are coming through the localization program We also are committed to a localization program which is 75% localization program so we want to make sure that in human resource Saudization target is achieved by 2030 and in doing so working with these two numbers, we have identified that there are education training gaps and primarily you would find them not in the conventional part of the industry oil chemical and what have you but you find it more to do with renewable, with hydrogen, with nuclear, and with the specific industries that we are trying to incubate as part of our localization program, which is in my view, it is totally disheartening. The localization program if it wasn't for the fact that Aramco had Iktva. Sabic had their own program and SEC we will be still tailing way back in trying to achieve what we are achieving. However, these three programs had created a bigger base or a pillar for us to launch our program from; So probably I would say that the energy sector has the biggest chance to achieve the 75% localization than probably any other sector. Now, when it comes to women empowerment, I have to say to our friends visiting us from abroad which is something which I am very proud of myself but everybody in the government from top to the last employee.

[M137-04] · سمو وزير الطاقة (HRH the Minister of Energy) · التوقيت 00:13:14 · Ministerial Keynote at Human Capability Initiative · 2024-02-28 · مشاهدة عند هذا التوقيت

In fact, as a society we have transcended, I don't know, 100, 150 years of fighting for that cause. Actually 200 years back in Britain when they had that movement on women empowerment, I forget the name of it but you can look it up, back in the US when the new deal was announced and president Roosevelt announced the bigger changer where you have allocations and percentage and quarter and under the title of affirmative action. Which tells a lot that the perception of women and minorities to be candid about it had its own condescending anomaly, which it says that female having got the talent, having got the equipment, having got the capacity or the stamina to be given a chance to work with the exception of few things. But it turned out and if we avoid the three to four decades that we had to endure, which I would have to call it as I have always been saying it for a few times now, I call it the black box or the black period. People called it the days of Sahwa, I used to call it the days of Ghafwa. I'm not shy of saying it again they were the days of Ghafwa, because only now only now with our current leadership, we went to a self-discovery of what is truly the bigger machine for our economy. You will find it in two no more than the two that I'm going to mention Youth and women empowerment. They are delivering! I belong to an institution! I belong to an ecosystem; it really gives me the pleasure standing in front of you here to say I'm probably one of the proudest Ministers in this cabinet whereby I could easily and proudly and honorably say I am proud to be working with this ecosystem that has so many young men and young women that are delivering the vision of 2030. Thank you! Thank you!