Today, as we mark the International Day of Education 2026, we celebrate a principle that lies at the heart of UNESCO’s mission: education is a fundamental human right, a public good, and a shared responsibility. This year’s theme, ‘The power of youth in co-creating education,’ reminds us that young people are not only recipients of education systems—they are partners, innovators, and essential actors in shaping their future.
Across the Gulf States and Yemen, youth represent an extraordinary source of creativity, resilience, and determination. With more than half of the global population now under the age of 30, their leadership is pivotal in driving progress toward peaceful, just, and inclusive societies. Yet too many young people continue to face challenges—poverty, inequality, and limited access to quality learning opportunities—that prevent them from fully exercising their potential. UNESCO reiterates that empowering youth must go beyond consultation; it requires ensuring their meaningful engagement throughout the entire policymaking and implementation cycle.
This year, UNESCO will release a new global measurement that tracks youth participation in educational legislation and policymaking. Developed by the Global Education Report team in partnership with the UN Youth Office, this initiative reflects our collective commitment to holding systems accountable for the pledges made during the Transforming Education Summit and in the Pact for the Future. It provides governments with concrete evidence to strengthen mechanisms that amplify youth voices at national, regional, and global levels.
The Gulf States and Yemen are experiencing rapid technological, social, and economic transformation. These shifts present new opportunities to rethink how education systems prepare young people for futures marked by innovation, sustainability, and digital fluency. UNESCO calls for investing in learning environments that nurture critical thinking, civic engagement, and problem-solving—skills essential for navigating a world being reshaped by technological revolutions. Today’s global challenges require re-imagined education systems co-designed with young people, not for them.
We also recognize and commend the leadership of young people across this region who are already co-creating solutions—supporting peers in crisis-affected contexts, contributing to community learning initiatives, driving digital innovation, and championing sustainability. Their stories reaffirm a simple truth: when youth are meaningfully engaged, education becomes more inclusive, relevant, and future ready.
On this International Day of Education, I encourage educators, civil society organizations, and all partners to join UNESCO in placing youth at the center of educational transformation. Let us commit to systems that listen to young people, invest in their participation, and champion their leadership. Empowering youth is not only a pathway to stronger education systems—it is an investment in peace, prosperity, and humanity’s shared future.
NOTE: Salah Khaled is Director, UNESCO Regional Office for the Gulf States and Yemen. He has made the statement on the occasion of the International Day of Education 2026.
Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School.
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People have become used to living with AI fairly quickly. ChatGPT is barely three years old, but has changed the way many of us communicate or deal with large amounts of information.
It has also led to serious concerns about jobs. For if machines become better than people at reading complex legal texts, or translating languages, or presenting arguments, won’t those old fashioned human employees become irrelevant? Surely mass unemployment is on the horizon?
Yet, when we look at the big numbers of the economy, this is not what’s happening.
Unemployment in the EU is at a historical low of around 6%, half the level of ten years ago. In the UK, it is even lower, at 5.1%, roughly the level of the booming early 2000s, and it is even lower again (4.4%) in the US.
The reason why there are still so many jobs is that while technology does make some human enterprise obsolete, it also creates new kinds of work to be done.
It’s happened before. In 1800 for example, around a third of British workers were farmers. Now the proportion working in agriculture is around 1%.
Or more recently, after the first ATM in the world was unveiled by Barclays in London in 1967, there were fears that staff at high street bank branches would disappear.
The opposite turned out to be the case. In the US, over the 30-year period of ATM growth, the number of bank tellers actually increased by 10%. ATMs made it cheaper to open bank branches (because they needed fewer tellers) and more communities gained access to financial services.
Only now, with a bank on every phone, is the number of high street bank staff in steep decline.
An imposition?
But yes, AI will take away some jobs. A third of Americans worry they will lose theirs to AI, and many of them will be right.
But since the industrial revolution, the world has seen a flow of innovations, sustaining an unprecedented exponential economic growth.
AI, like the computer, the internet, the railways, or electric appliances, is a slow revolution. It will gradually change habits, but in doing so, provide opportunities for new businesses to emerge.
And just as there has been no immediate AI boom when it comes to economic growth, there is no immediate shift in employment. What we see instead are largely firms using AI as an excuse for standard job cutting exercises. This then leads to a different question about how AI will change how meaningful our jobs are and how much money we earn.
With technology, it can go either way.
Bank tellers became more valuable with the arrival of ATMs because instead of just counting money, they could offer advice. And in 2016, Geoff Hinton, a major figure in the development of of AI, recommended that the world “should stop training radiologists” because robots were getting better than humans at analysing images.
Ten years later, demand for radiologists in the US is at a record high. Using AI to analyse images has made the job more valuable, not less, because radiologists can treat more patients (most of whom probably want to deal with a human)
So as a worker, what you want to find is a job where the machines make you more productive – not one where you become a servant to the machines.
Working together. Summit Art Creations/Shutterstock
Any inequality?
Another question raised by AI is whether it will reduce or increase the inequality between workers.
At first, many thought that allowing everyone to access an AI assistant with skills in processing information or clear communication would decrease earning inequality. But other recent research found the opposite, with highly skilled entrepreneurs gaining the most from having access to AI support.
One reason for this is that taking advice is itself a skill. In my own research with colleagues, we found that giving chess players top-quality advice does little to close the gap between the best and the worst – because lower-ability players were less likely to follow high-quality advice.
And perhaps that’s the biggest risk AI brings. That some people benefit from it much more than others.
In that situation, there might be one group which uses AI to manage their everyday lives, but find themselves stuck in low-productivity jobs with no prospect of a decent salary. And another smaller group of privileged, well-educated workers who thrive by controlling the machines and the wealth they create.
Every technological revolution in history has made the world richer, healthier and more comfortable. But transitions are always hard. What matters next is how societies can help everyone to be the boss of the machines – not their servants.
Stunning aerial shot showcasing Dubai’s architectural layout amidst the desert. By RITESH SINGH via Pexels
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The SDGs showed us where to go – now the world needs a roadmap for what comes next
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Shirin Malekpour, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts
Cameron Allen, Senior Research Fellow, Sustainability Transitions Lab
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As the 2030 deadline for the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is fast approaching, attention is turning towards what comes next.
The official UN-led process of negotiations for the post-2030 global sustainable development agenda is expected to start in 2027. However, proposals are already emerging from different sectors about what the next agenda should contain.
In a new article published in Science, we argue that any proposal for the post-2030 agenda needs to be grounded in a clear and explicit theory of change that explains why and how it will accelerate implementation and lead to better outcomes.
We then go on to suggest an approach to assess the impact and feasibility of various proposals.
Achievements and failures of the SDGs
The unanimous adoption of the SDGs by all UN member states in 2015 is a landmark achievement in creating a shared vision for sustainable development.
The goals encompassed various issues that our societies have been grappling with, from eradicating poverty to quality health and education, clean and affordable energy for all, addressing inequalities, climate action and protecting our natural environment.
These challenges are as relevant today as they were in 2015 when the goals were adopted.
The goals were novel in several ways. They applied equally to all countries. They highlighted the interlinked nature of economic, social and environmental systems. They aspired to “leave no-one behind”, and emphasised the role of partnerships between governments, business and civil society to achieve the goals.
The SDGs have since met with some success as many countries and cities have localised the goals, are monitoring and reporting progress, and are steadilyworking toward their achievement.
Many businesses have aligned with the SDGs, and civil society organisations have endorsed them.
Global frameworks such as the SDGs can also provide legitimacy, shared expectations and a common language.
In addition, SDGs support coordination, foster learning and comparison across contexts, and encourage resource allocation and action needed from all countries to address challenges of a global nature.
Despite these achievements, progress has been slow and far from ideal, with less than 20% of targets on track to be met by 2030. The SDGs gave the world a shared vision; however, goal-setting alone was never going to deliver the scale of change required.
The SDGs provided direction, but not the mechanisms needed to overcome a multitude of political, financial and institutional barriers that block change.
The SDGs showed us where to go – now we need a roadmap that shows how to get there. A stronger theory of change can help turn ambition into action and ensure the next global agenda delivers the transformations people and the planet deserve.
Shaping a stronger post-2030 agenda
In our post-2030 initiative at Monash University, we’ve partnered with the Stockholm Environment Institute to ensure any future framework is grounded in the latest scientific knowledge and evidence.
To this end, we’re convening a global consortium of SDG experts and stakeholders from around the world in a series of workshops and activities to develop systematic insights in support of the post-2030 negotiations.
We also work with our partners in various governments and UN agencies to create impact pathways.
Our new article in Science is the outcome of a 2024 workshop at the Monash University, Indonesia campus, where we met as a group of 23 researchers spanning 17 research institutions globally. In this piece, we argue that while the SDGs remain a landmark achievement in creating a shared global vision for sustainable development, they were underpinned by some flawed assumptions about how goal‑setting would drive real‑world action.
Through a detailed content analysis of the 2030 agenda, we reconstructed the “implicit theory of change” that shaped the SDGs and critically reflected on what has or hasn’t worked as intended.
We found that the framework assumed global goals would naturally translate into national strategies, mobilise actors and ultimately transform societies, but without being explicit about roadblocks that would impede change.
We identified several systemic weaknesses that have hindered progress, including limited national leadership, weak incentives for business and non‑government actors, superficial voluntary reviews, missing or outdated target areas such as artificial intelligence and international spillovers, and insufficient clarity on the transformations required to achieve the goals.
With proposals for the next global framework already emerging, we argue that a systematic method is needed to assess which ideas are both impactful and politically feasible within an increasingly polarised global landscape.
This requires being clear about how each proposal would drive sustainable development, identifying what will be effective and how it will overcome the barriers that have hampered progress to date.
We’re taking the post-2030 initiative forward with a range of activities, including a recent gathering of the consortium in Stockholm in December 2025, where we planned for the coming years and impact pathways.
The SDGs were always ambitious, and full delivery was never going to be easy. They remain vital, but future success depends on a much clearer focus on implementation – understanding what’s blocking change and being explicit about how transformation happens.
While a stronger theory of change will not solve every implementation challenge, it will provide a more solid foundation for governments, businesses and communities to drive real progress on the ground.
Our three Architects of the Year are Je Ahn (top left), Marina Tabassum (bottom, centre) and Lina Gotmeh (top right). Three houses get the nod for Best Use of Material: Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio (bottom left), Sombra de Santa Fe by DUST Architects (top, centre) and Bin Nouh’s Courtyard House by Shahira Fahmy
(Image credit: Mixed credit)
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Architecture is an inherently optimistic profession – a quality instilled in me through training and flagged to me in many an interview over the years. Architects set out to change the world, often consciously and purposefully, quite literally shaping the environment around us. It helps to remember this essential positivity at a time when it is easy to get caught up in global events that weigh heavily on our minds.
Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio wins a Best Use of Material 2026 award alongside two other exceptional homes using earth building techniques – (Image credit: Jim Stephenson)
We celebrate hope and optimism in architecture
At Wallpaper*, we are always keen to champion innovations, ideas and designs that bring hope and optimism, including architectural wonders that put a smile on our faces. There have been quite a few of those over the past year. The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale had its critics, but it also showcased the architecture world’s hunger for change. Meanwhile, Sarah Housley’s new book Designing Hope discussed specific scenarios that nod to a better outlook for us all.
Also in 2025, Finland was named the world’s happiest country for the eighth year in a row; its ambitious sustainability strategies surely play a role here (policy makers, take note). Elsewhere, ingenious initiatives, such as Retrofit House – a live showcase of sustainable homebuilding techniques, by Civic Square, Dark Matter Labs and Material Cultures – landed to give power to ordinary people.
Bin Nouh’s Courtyard House by Shahira Fahmy in Saudi Arabia’s AlUla is another home using earth building techniques and sharing our Best Use of Material 2026 accolade – (Image credit: Nour El Refai)
Above all, it’s the plurality of architectural voices and radical solutions by the world’s creative minds that brings the most hopeful message for a sunnier future. And what better way mark what we look forward to seeing more of than our annual Wallpaper* Design Awards?
Je Ahn, one of our three Architects of the Year 2026 (Image credit: Studio Weave)
In that spirit, a series of our 2026 awards – newly announced in the February issue of Wallpaper* and featured over the coming weeks on Wallpaper.com – celebrates one of the many ways in which we can sustainably diversify building design and construction: working with earth. Once dismissed as ‘backwards’ and unfashionable, building with earth is making a strong comeback. Readily accessible, endlessly adaptable, and honed through generational wisdom, this construction method has many iterations across the world. Polished or textured, geometric or organic, today’s earth buildings look as aspirational as the finest, conventionally built 21st-century villas.
Marina Tabassum, one of our three Architects of the Year 2026 (Image credit: Asif Salman)
Our Best Use of Material awards category spotlights three standout residential examples that use local soil – in the UK, the US and Saudi Arabia – with decidedly contemporary outcomes that show off the age-old technique’s potential.
Lina Ghotmeh, one of our three Architects of the Year 2026 (Image credit: Photography by Brigitte Lacombe)
Also for the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026, we named three Architects of the Year, chosen for having commanded significant attention in 2025. Our winners are Je Ahn, who last year completed a modest yet infinitely glorious home on a British island; Lina Ghotmeh, whose studio is booming with new projects; and Marina Tabassum, who wowed us with her 2025 Serpentine Pavilion.
When we interviewed each of them, continuing in our pursuit of optimism, we asked them to name a building that made them smile. We were looking for spatial expressions of serenity – architecture that brings hope and a visceral twinkle. We also ended up talking about everything from height-specific kitchen counters and spilling wine on light-coloured floors to the revelation that architecture need not take centre stage, and we left feeling inspired. Here’s to a great year in architecture – join us as we raise our always-half-full glass.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
Shaping the Future of Construction in the Middle East
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GCP Construction Chemicals becomes the new Chryso. Born from the strategic alliance between Chryso and GCP, our new brand embodies the best of both companies. It symbolizes our journey and our future in the field of construction specialty chemicals. Courtesy of Chrysso Saint-Gobain.
Dubai is pushing forward with cutting-edge construction technologies—from fibre-reinforced concrete systems to large-format 3D printing—while regulators and industry leaders work to balance innovation with safety and long-term performance.
In a hurry? Here are the key points:
Dubai is rapidly adopting next-generation technologies such as Apis Cor’s 3D-printing systems, Bekaert’s Dramix steel fibres, and GCP’s STRUX macro-fibres to modernize construction.
These solutions promise cleaner sites, faster project delivery, reduced rebar use, and lower embodied carbon across major developments.
Regulators emphasize that innovation must advance alongside rigorous safety, testing, and performance verification to ensure resilient, code-compliant structures.
Dubai has rapidly positioned itself as one of the world’s most ambitious testbeds for next-generation construction technologies, advancing a built-environment agenda that prioritizes speed, safety, and sustainability at scale. Over the past two years—particularly through 2024 and 2025—the emirate has accelerated the adoption of innovations such as large-format 3D concrete printing by robotics companies like Apis Cor, advanced fibre-reinforced systems from suppliers including Bekaert with its Dramix 4D and GCP Applied Technologies’ STRUXmacro-fibres,as well as self-healing admixtures and optimized digital mix-design platforms. These technologies are no longer theoretical experiments; they are being promoted for deployment across industrial flooring, infrastructure tunnels, precast modules, and residential construction. Early use cases promise cleaner construction sites, faster delivery, reduced reliance on conventional reinforcement, and lower embodied carbon in structural elements.
Yet progress requires precision. As Ihab Bassiouni of Dubai Municipality noted during a panel at The Big 5:
“It’s very delicate… how to balance between both. It’s not easy,” referring to the challenge of encouraging innovation while ensuring public safety, regulatory compliance, and long-term performance.
The region’s authorities now face the task of validating emerging systems—whether steel-fiber-reinforced concrete used to replace part of the rebar in foundations, synthetic macrofibres introduced to streamline megaproject flooring, or 3D-printed structural walls produced in hours rather than days. The Middle East’s construction boom makes this balancing act especially urgent: as the sector embraces transformative technologies, regulators must ensure that safety and durability evolve just as quickly.
The Role of Standards in Enabling Safe Innovation
The session was moderated by Mohamed Amer, Managing Director – MENA, International Code Council (ICC), who opened the discussion by emphasizing the role of standards and performance-based design in enabling safe innovation. Amer highlighted the ICC’s responsibility in codes, testing, and certification, noting ongoing collaborations with ACI on low-carbon cement criteria and emerging materials.
Bassiouni emphasized that Dubai’s building code already supports innovation through performance-based provisions, allowing new technologies to be approved even when not explicitly covered in prescriptive rules.
“We give the opportunity to material producers… to create new products and get them used in concrete as an alternative to the prescribed fixed designs,” he added.
Exemplary projects: Dubai’s innovation drive is already visible on the ground — from the Dubai Municipality office printed on-site by Apis Cor in 2019, which showcased rapid, large-format 3D printing for municipal buildings; to Expo City Dubai’s 2024 deployment of Bekaert’s Dramix® 4D fibres in large floor-on-ground areas to reduce rebar, improve crack control and lower embodied carbon; and while GCP Applied Technologies’ STRUX® macro-fibres are actively marketed and supplied into the UAE market and used internationally in high-performance slabs, a publicly documented, named UAE project citing STRUX in press materials is not available at this time and we recommend vendor confirmation for a UAE-specific case.
Understanding the BSA: Building System Approval Process
Dubai Municipality, one of the main governing bodies over the city of Dubai, operates the Building System Approval (BSA) process, which enables comprehensive testing and evaluation of innovative systems through documented research, third-party assessments, and pilot projects. He noted that the authority is introducing an “in-principle approval” stage—a pre-evaluation mechanism allowing system owners to obtain early technical feedback before investing in full-scale pilots or manufacturing facilities.
However, Bassiouni underscored that regulation alone is not enough. The municipality is actively looking to incorporate a new innovative platform designed to bring regulators, academia, consultants, manufacturers, and the public together.
“Everyone will be part of the whole process,” he said, explaining that this collaborative environment, combined with industry education and sandbox testing spaces, will speed up adoption and reduce uncertainty.
Many engineers, he observed:
“are not aware of new technologies because they are busy with their day-to-day jobs,” making education a crucial priority.
(Left) Flooring: Whether it’s daily traffic, forklifts, robots or even the heaviest of containers, steel fiber floors…; (Right) Precast: Sewer pipes, electric cabins, utility vaults…steel fiber reinforcement is not bound by form. Courtesy of Bekaert.
ACI’s Contribution to Concrete Knowledge and Standards
Also on the panel was Ahmad Mhanna, Director, Middle East / North Africa Region at ACI, who described how the organization’s century-long history is rooted in industry expertise and continuous evolution.
“We heavily depend on our members… to develop these standards,” Mhanna said, noting that ACI now maintains more than “35,000 pages of concrete knowledge” spanning material science, structural design, construction, repair, resilience, and sustainability.
He highlighted ACI 318—the world’s leading structural concrete design code—as an example of flexibility and innovation-readiness. When a material or system is not covered explicitly, Mhanna explained:
“It allows the use of that material or system in collaboration with the building official and the system owner.”
This pathway, often used alongside ICC acceptance criteria, allows innovations to enter the market without compromising safety.
Shifting Toward Resilience and Whole-Life Performance
Mhanna also addressed ACI’s strategic shift toward resilience and whole-life performance. A resilient structure, he noted, is one that can recover its functionality after a disruptive event—an increasingly important consideration in modern codes. He stressed that long-term operational savings and durability benefits often outweigh higher upfront material costs.
But the biggest barrier, Mhanna argued, is not technology but perception.
“Many engineers don’t have enough background… they deal with it as a new material,” he said, pointing out that solutions such as steel fiber-reinforced concrete have existed for more than 50 years and are globally validated across tunnels, slabs, precast elements, and industrial projects.
Adding the manufacturer’s perspective, Ahmad Mandalawi, Regional Structural and Specification Engineer, Bekaert, reinforced the need for industry-wide education and early involvement of system owners in design. He explained that engineers often hesitate to approve fiber-reinforced systems simply because they fall outside their traditional training or because codes do not yet feature abundant examples. Owners, he added, tend to compare materials “like-for-like” on price rather than examining lifecycle value. He urged stakeholders to focus on “the total cost of ownership,” including reduced construction timelines, labor savings, corrosion mitigation, and long-term durability.
Fiber-Reinforced Concrete in Dubai’s Landmark Projects
Mandalawi said that Dubai Metro Blue Line extension, where steel fiber reinforcement was used in segmental tunnel linings, has seen faster installation and substantial reductions in embodied carbon. He also cited the Expo City townhouses, where switching from traditional rebar to fully fiber-reinforced slabs resulted in up to 30% lower CO₂ emissions, 50% fewer steel bars, and 15–20% total cost savings, all without compromising structural performance.
All panelists have agreed that innovation does not have to come at the expense of safety. With performance-based codes, rigorous testing frameworks, and stronger collaboration between regulators, standards bodies, consultants, and manufacturers, the Middle East is well-positioned to lead a new era of sustainable, efficient, and resilient construction.
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Our three Architects of the Year are Je Ahn (top left), Marina Tabassum (bottom, centre) and Lina Gotmeh (top right). Three houses get the nod for Best Use of Material: Rammed Earth House by Tuckey Design Studio (bottom left), Sombra de Santa Fe by DUST Architects (top, centre) and Bin Nouh’s Courtyard House by Shahira Fahmy
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