Dr Sarper Tanli, Executive Director, Middle East and Africa at Mass General Brigham examines how Saudi Arabia and the UAE are shifting from workforce nationalisation towards locally embedded clinical capability. He argues that international partnerships should ultimately be judged less by patient referrals and episodic knowledge transfer than by the specialist expertise, training pathways, leadership and institutional structures that endure and scale within national health systems.
Across the Gulf, countries are making deliberate and far-reaching efforts to strengthen healthcare infrastructure, creating stronger domestic systems that can meet more needs closer to home. Saudi Arabia and the UAE offer two important examples, with national visions spanning workforce development, clinical capacity and system-wide transformation.
This transformation also creates an important opportunity for how partnerships are designed. Their value should not be defined primarily by patient referrals or episodic knowledge transfer, but increasingly by how international experience and local expertise can come together to build capabilities that are sustainable and scalable within national health systems. Cross-border care will continue to play an important role for some highly complex cases. But the broader opportunity is to strengthen the workforce, clinical capabilities and institutional structures that allow more healthcare needs to be addressed locally. The question for international partners is therefore not simply what expertise they can provide, but what capability they can help build locally.
From workforce nationalization to localized capability
Saudi Arabia offers a clear example of a rapidly evolving system. Its Saudi Model of Care is designed to deliver a more integrated patient-centred system through 20 health clusters across the Kingdom. Nationalization is accelerating alongside this transformation. According to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health, Saudization requirements in the private healthcare sector are set at 65% in radiology, 70% in medical laboratories, and 80% in clinical nutrition and physical therapy.
The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi has similarly set ambitious national workforce targets. In 2023, it announced a target of creating 5,000 new opportunities for UAE nationals across healthcare and administrative roles in the sector by the end of 2025. The Department subsequently reported that Abu Dhabi had attracted 1,200 healthcare professionals, contributing to 12% year-on-year growth in the national workforce. That effort is continuing in 2026, with healthcare facilities subject to further annual targets to increase Emirati participation across clinical and administrative segments.
These numbers matter.
A healthcare workforce better reflecting the population it serves brings a stronger understanding of cultural nuances and patient expectations, translating to a better provision of care. This points to an important distinction: nationalization expands participation; localization embeds knowledge, leadership and institutional capability. Both matter, but they are not the same. Nationalization can be measured in part by who enters the workforce.
Localization on the other hand asks a different set of questions. For example, can clinicians develop deeper specialist expertise and train the next generation? Can more national professionals progress into specialist, educator and leadership roles? And does the system have the governance and operating structures in place to sustain quality as networks continue to expand?
There are encouraging signs. Abu Dhabi has established pathways spanning internships, residencies and fellowships, while more than 25 healthcare facilities are accredited to provide approved education and training.
This is where localization becomes a driver of national capability: when participation creates pathways to expertise and leadership, and when knowledge becomes embedded within the institutions and systems themselves than residing only with individual practitioners.
From knowledge transfer to capability building
If nationalization expands participation, international partnerships can help ensure that participation translates into deeper and enduring capacity.
Training, clinical mentorship, observerships and knowledge exchange remain valuable. But the measure of their impact is the extent to which they translate into capabilities that local teams can adapt, lead and ultimately scale. A practical question to pose is what new capabilities will local teams be equipped to lead, scale and continuously improve?
That requires moving beyond the idea of knowledge transfer as a one-way exchange. Health systems are shaped by the populations they serve, their disease burden, culture, and national priorities. Approaches developed elsewhere cannot be imported like-for-like and be expected to work in the same way. International partnerships create the most value when global experience and local expertise come together to determine what works, what needs to change, and what can be scaled.
Capability building also requires programs to be connected rather than treated as standalone interventions. Workforce development must be connected to career pathways, clinical leadership, governance and opportunities for people to take on greater responsibility. In February 2026, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health announced an initiative through Health Holding Company to create 3,150 opportunities across the Kingdom’s 20 health clusters combines workforce expansion with professional development, including structured training pathways in areas such as family medicine. Abu Dhabi’s upskilling programs, for example, target future needs including primary care, mental health and genomic medicine, with genomic training ranging from shorter programs to local fellowships and master’s-level genetic counselling.
The greater opportunity is to connect these investments to wider strategic priorities. Building capability around new models of care, priority clinical programs and centres of excellence can create a multiplier effect: developing individual skills while strengthening the teams, institutions and systems in which those skills are put into practice.
That is how capability becomes self-reinforcing. Clinicians deepen specialist expertise, specialists train others, educators build the next generation of professionals, and clinical leaders help strengthen the institutions around them. This is key to creating the conditions for professionals and institutions to take greater ownership of what comes next over time.
What success should look like
This should change how international healthcare partnerships define and measure success.
Can local teams sustain and improve clinical standards, reaching new heights? Can successful approaches be adapted and scaled? Can local leaders respond as patient needs change? And can today’s clinicians become tomorrow’s mentors, educators and healthcare leaders?
These outcomes are harder to measure than the opening of a hospital or the signing of a major partnership. They also take longer to achieve. But they tell us far more about whether healthcare transformation will endure.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are already investing significantly in national healthcare talents while strengthening the institutions, education pathways and clinical capacity around them. For international partners, the opportunity is to contribute to that trajectory. That is a more enduring measure of partnership: not simply how much expertise crosses borders, but how much capability remains, grows and is ultimately led from within.
