Gabriel G. Tabarani
Around the world, governments are under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources, respond faster to citizen needs, and rebuild trust in public institutions. Kuwait is no exception. For more than a decade, it has rolled out bold strategies under Kuwait Vision 2035, promising modernization, digital transformation, and the strengthening of rule-of-law institutions. Ministries have been restructured, e-government platforms launched, and ambitious targets announced.
And yet, the country’s administrative system remains deeply inefficient. Decision-making processes are cumbersome. Ministries and agencies operate in silos. Reform agendas repeat themselves in cycles, often with fanfare but without measurable progress. The private sector, which should be energized by reform, has instead grown weary: foreign investors hesitate, while many local entrepreneurs increasingly look abroad for opportunities. This paradox—an era of reform without reform—is the defining challenge of Kuwait’s governance. The country does not lack ambition or resources. What it lacks is a system that ensures plans turn into practice.
It would be unfair to suggest that nothing has changed. Important steps have been taken. The Sahel e-government platform has streamlined access to multiple services. Automation is advancing in several ministries. Recent licensing reforms have been especially promising: in the first quarter of 2025, Kuwait issued 9,881 new business licenses, a 9.4 percent increase over last year. Strikingly, freelance and micro-enterprise licenses surged by more than 200 percent after new rules allowed 175 activities to operate without physical offices—processed entirely online. These numbers are not trivial. They show that when barriers are removed and digital tools are embraced, citizen participation rises quickly. Similar reforms in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, such as allowing one office to hold multiple licenses with safeguards, demonstrate that regulatory flexibility can coexist with accountability.
But these pockets of success also highlight the broader problem: reform is the exception, not the norm. Too many other government procedures—procurement approvals, contract awards, or routine permits—still drag on for months or years. Ministries continue to gather mountains of data but rarely use it to evaluate performance. A culture of wasta and risk aversion punishes initiative, leaving reform-minded civil servants isolated and reforms vulnerable to inertia.
Kuwait’s history helps explain why good intentions so often stall. In the years after independence, Kuwait was a pioneer in state planning, establishing one of the region’s earliest planning authorities. But as oil revenues grew, the emphasis shifted from performance to patronage. Long-term plans were drafted, but implementation repeatedly faltered. Weak feedback loops, fragmented mandates, and inconsistent political will created a cycle of vision without execution. This pattern persists today. Initiatives may launch with enthusiasm but lose steam without real-time monitoring. Delays accumulate, responsibilities blur across ministries, and citizens are left frustrated. The issue is not only political—it is operational. Reform plans often lack clear frameworks to measure progress, track inter-agency dependencies, or identify bottlenecks. Without those sensors, reforms too often stall before they produce results.
This is where government analytics comes in. Defined by the OECD and advanced by the World Bank, government analytics is the structured use of administrative, survey, and performance data to inform decision-making. It is not mere data collection. It links information directly to accountability, resource allocation, and reform delivery. By embedding analytics into government operations, Kuwait could detect inefficiencies early, re-engineer processes to cut waste, deploy real-time monitoring so leaders can act before delays escalate, and incorporate feedback loops through citizen surveys and staff input. Most importantly, it would allow the redesign of incentives to reward innovation rather than inertia.
This model has been tested elsewhere. Singapore integrates citizen feedback into agency dashboards, reducing duplication and cutting licensing backlogs. Estonia’s X-Road infrastructure allows secure, live data exchange across more than 900 institutions, slashing processing times by 80 percent. The United Kingdom publishes real-time dashboards on service efficiency, boosting transparency and public trust. For Kuwait, the lesson is clear: analytics is not optional. It is the bridge between reform announcements and reform delivery.
Embedding analytics in Kuwait’s governance requires a practical agenda. A central analytics unit should be created under the Supreme Council for Planning and Development or the Prime Minister’s Office, empowered to work across ministries, set benchmarks, and track progress. Surveys of both public servants and citizens should be institutionalized to expose bottlenecks inside ministries and test whether reforms are felt in daily life. Analytics “mini-labs” can be piloted in ministries such as Commerce, Health, and the Central Agency for Public Tenders to track process improvements in real time. Public-facing dashboards linked to Vision 2035 should make core reforms transparent to citizens. And the government must build analytical talent through civil service career tracks and modern data governance laws.
None of these measures are about producing more reports. They are about making government measurable, accountable, and transparent. They are about creating a continuous loop of diagnosis, detection, redesign, deployment, and adaptation. Kuwait’s challenge is not digitization—it is learning. Digitization without analytics risks creating faster versions of the same inefficient processes. Analytics, by contrast, forces continuous improvement. It turns government into a learning state: one that diagnoses problems with data, adapts policies in real time, and rewards innovation rather than inertia.
The stakes could not be higher. The Emir, Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, has called for a “new phase of reforms,” urging progress on infrastructure, education, healthcare, and fiscal discipline. These are not abstract aspirations. They are directives. But without a governance framework capable of tracking reform momentum, these ambitions risk becoming another cycle of plans without outcomes.
Kuwait stands at a crossroads. The ingredients for reform are present: political will, economic resources, and a youthful population eager for change. What is missing is a system that ensures reforms deliver measurable results. Government analytics offers that system. It transforms reform from a series of disconnected initiatives into a continuous, evidence-based loop of improvement. It creates the sensors that Kuwait has lacked—ensuring that inefficiencies are exposed, bottlenecks resolved, and progress sustained.
Kuwait Vision 2035 will not be realized by plans alone. It will be realized when every ministry, every reform program, and every citizen-facing service is held accountable to evidence. For Kuwait, the choice is stark: remain in a cycle of reform without reform, or embrace analytics and finally turn vision into action.
This article was originally published in Arabic on the Asswak Al-Arab website
