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The knowledge economy and the information age
Economical 01/08/2025
Yasser Al-Metwally
What is the way to achieve sustainable development? Or rather,
what are its requirements?
The economic principle that determines the path of development is based on the extent of the ability to diversify the sources of the economy, and
not rely on a single source (oil), a single resource for Iraq, for example.
Therefore, the basic requirement for achieving sustainable development is to diversify the economy, and
this is done by activating the traditional sectors represented by the productive and service sectors.
However, this concept, along with the changes and transformations that occurred during the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has become insufficient.
Rather, another more important requirement has been added,
which is adopting the knowledge economy in preparation for entering the information age, which comes directly after the knowledge age.
Global experiences that preceded us with this approach indicate that the percentage of reliance on traditional sectors constitutes 17 percent in the extractive industries, oil and gas to achieve the goal of sustainable development, and
the remainder depends on the knowledge economy, which is concerned with inventions and technology and improving the efficiency of industry and agriculture, in its various production and service sectors.
This comes in creating stable economies that are prepared to focus on the knowledge economy that they have in their foundations and infrastructure.
However, the situation in Iraq is different in that the structural defect is an adjacent feature of the Iraqi economy, so
it requires focusing first on activating the productive and service sectors to correct the distortions resulting from the aforementioned defect,
and to build a solid base and basic infrastructure to achieve development.
In parallel, it requires attention to the knowledge economy,
which is a newly introduced economic principle that targets educated workers, that is, vocational education and vocational training, which declined in Iraq, and
now the government is seeking and planning to revive it due to its importance in achieving the path of sustainable development.
The knowledge economy is characterized by important advantages.
Through vocational education, errors in workforce planning can be addressed.
It also reduces the pressure on unplanned university education, as universities have begun to expand horizontally to no avail and the problem of the culture of relying on the state to create job opportunities has deepened. When the state is unable to absorb these numbers.
The jobs of the future, in light of the digital and cognitive economic development, will be mostly concentrated in the private sector and entrepreneurship in the long term in Iraq.
Therefore, a ground must be created in building a knowledgeable generation and directing it towards managing the jobs of the future, as artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate thousands, if not millions, of job opportunities. From existence,
therefore, alternative jobs must be created to absorb the outputs of important technical studies.
This is the reality of the situation, predictions and expectations for the future of new jobs and their role in achieving sustainable development, and the preparation to enter the era of the information economy, which is undoubtedly a development that follows the era of the knowledge economy.
Both are inevitable developments that rebuild the global economy in innovative and rapid ways, which makes information the main engine for growth and development. It is necessary to catch up with the world in science, knowledge and the information economy.
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