Training During Times of Financial Constraints: Lessons from the Case of Dubai’s Public Sector

Abstract

When financial crises strike governments, the first departments that usually witness sharp budgetary cuts are the ones in charge of training. If the impact of the budgetary cuts on training practices and organizational performance are left unexamined, governments risk lowering the effectiveness of their employees and efficiency of their service delivery. This policy brief assesses the repercussions of the recent financial crisis (2009) on the training budgets and practices of key government entities in the Emirate of Dubai. To properly evaluate the impact and response of the different entities to the cuts in their training budgets, this brief compares the experiences of the private and public sector entities in the U.S. and U.K. with that of Dubai. The brief concludes that, despite the budgetary limitations, the training departments in Dubai’s public sector, like those in the U.K., successfully managed to come up with innovative and low-cost ways to secure high quality and equity of the provided training programs.