The only way to sustain a rights-based development strategy over the long term is to offer employment opportunities to the poor and, particularly, poor youth, thereby contributing to the realization of the right to development in the ESCWA region. It will also reduce the leakage of wages and consumption and help to support the development of the manufacturing and services industries in the region. The key is to raise the skills and productivity of nationals so that they can compete on equal terms with highly skilled foreign workers, despite the high reservation wage of national workers.96 The situation is different in the MDEs, as they face more severe levels of unemployment, underemployment and unproductive employment, and have scarcer resources to address these problems than the countries of the GCC.