March 2026 Fireside Chat

Event Summary

18 March 2026

Our latest fireside chat featured Samia Melhem, Lead Policy Specialist in the Digital Development Vice Presidency at the World Bank, along with her colleagues Albatool Abdulrahman M Abu Hashem, Dina Danif Richani, and  Sunduss Hamdan. The session was chaired by Dr Zeynep Engin, Founding Director of Data for Policy CIC.

Samia addressed the urgent and growing mismatch between digital skills supply and employer demand across the MENA region, presenting preliminary findings from a major World Bank study drawing on over 276,000 online job vacancies collected between 2020 and mid-2025. She made a compelling case that digital and AI proficiency are fast becoming the defining currency of employability and that the region’s education systems are struggling to keep pace.

Funded through the Digital Development Partnership Trust Fund, the study examines digital skills supply and demand across 22 MENA countries, with deep-dive analyses of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Lebanon representing a spectrum from highly advanced digital economies to conflict-affected states. It draws on Lightcast job vacancy data, stakeholder surveys with private sector employers, and an assessment of higher education and TVET institutions across the region.

Key Findings

  • Digital skills demand is rising across all sectors. Basic digital literacy is now so widely assumed by employers that it is no longer explicitly listed in job postings. Demand is shifting rapidly towards intermediate and advanced skills.
  • AI and generative AI are emerging as a new priority. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, employer demand for AI competencies has spiked significantly, with many now requiring postgraduate qualifications for roles that previously required a degree.
  • A significant supply-demand mismatch persists. Universities and vocational institutions are not producing graduates equipped with the skills the market demands, held back by slow curriculum processes, limited industry collaboration, and funding constraints.
  • The gender gap in tech leadership remains stark. Despite women comprising 51% of STEM graduates in countries like Saudi Arabia, female representation in tech leadership remains below 1% across much of the region.

Policy Recommendations

  • Universities must accelerate curriculum review and become more agile in responding to market needs.
  • Industry-academia partnerships should be embedded into degree programmes, with technology companies co-delivering content and credentials.
  • Governments should incentivise employer-led reskilling through tax breaks and other policy tools.
  • Stronger graduate tracking mechanisms are needed to improve the evidence base for policymakers.

Looking Ahead

The full study is expected to be completed by the end of the World Bank’s current fiscal year, with findings to be shared in partnership with the Islamic Development Bank, African Development Bank, ITU, and UNDP.

This Fireside Chat demonstrated that the challenge of building digitally skilled workforces is not merely a technical or educational issue — it is one of the most consequential policy questions of our time. With AI reshaping industries at an unprecedented pace, the gap between what education systems produce and what employers need is widening. Closing that gap will require bold collaboration between governments, universities, and the private sector across the entire MENA region and beyond.

We look forward to the next session in our Fireside Chat series, where we will continue to explore critical issues shaping the future of data governance, AI regulation, and policy innovation.

About the Speaker:

Samiha Melhem is the Lead Policy Specialist in the Digital Development Vice Presidency at the World Bank, based in Washington, DC. She leads digital government transformation initiatives and research on digital skills and the impact of AI on the digital economy in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan region. She has extensive experience supporting digital transformation projects across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and received an Arab League award in 2025 for her contributions to the digital economy in the MENA region.

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