JEDDAH – Qatar is the most change-ready Arab country, according to the “Change Readiness Index tool (CRI), issued by the consulting and auditing firm KPMG. The survey assesses the capacity of 90 countries to undergo natural, technological and demographic change, measures their capacity to compete on a global level and attract investment, and long-term trends for these countries. Out of the countries surveyed, Singapore was picked as the most change-ready, followed by Sweden, Qatar, New Zealand, Germany, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Kingdom. The study was conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics and assesses the countries' change-readiness in three aspects: economic capabilities, governance capabilities, and social capabilities. In each of these areas, the sectors covered were infrastructure, fiscal and budget policy, food and energy security, access to information and health, and others. In a communiqué about the study, the KPMG partner in Brazil for strategy, Augusto Sales, says a country's capacity to respond to change is key to building a sustainable economy and a fairer economy. Brazil is placed 42nd in the CRI ranking. Regarding Arab countries, apart from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the survey includes Jordan (30th), Tunisia (39th), Morocco (40th), Syria (56th), Egypt (63rd), Yemen (79th) and Algeria (81st). The last in the ranking is Afghanistan. The Index also demonstrates that, while change readiness correlates with income levels, development levels, and access to resources, these factors do not definitively dictate a country's change readiness. In some cases, countries that have limited economic assets have achieved greater change readiness than those commonly seen as more developed. Some so-called developed nations have surprisingly low levels of ‘anticipated' change readiness. Among other key findings, the CRI revealed that a country's wealth is not always a determining indicator of its ability to respond to and manage change. A number of lower income countries have been ranked as having greater change readiness capability compared to some of their more developed counterparts. For example, Chile, categorized as an upper-middle income country, ranked as high or higher in the index than many high-income countries, including the United States of America and France. Several lower-middle income countries, including Panama and the Philippines, outperformed some higher-income countries in the rankings, placing above Italy, Poland, Brazil and China. — SG
