- 1 hour ago
Kuwait has long held a distinctive place in the modern history of the Gulf region, not only because of its strategic location and economic evolution, but also because of the many pioneering steps it took ahead of its neighbors.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Kuwait doesn't get talked about as much as its glitzier Gulf neighbors.
00:04No indoor ski slopes, no man-made islands shaped like palm trees.
00:08But strip away the skyline comparisons and you'll find something else.
00:12A small country that kept beating everyone else to the punch.
00:16A constitution before Saudi Arabia had won.
00:19Independence before Qatar or the UAE even existed as sovereign states.
00:24A stock market before Dubai was trading a single share.
00:27So today we're counting down seven things Kuwait did first in the Gulf.
00:32Starting with the one that still shapes its politics today.
00:35Let's start with the big one.
00:37In 1962, Kuwait adopted a written constitution.
00:41And it wasn't just paperwork.
00:42It set up a real, elected National Assembly the following year.
00:46And that made Kuwait unique among Gulf states for its relatively open political system.
00:51Adopting a written constitution in 1962.
00:54And establishing the first elected unicameral National Assembly the following year.
00:59No other monarchy on the Arabian Peninsula had anything close to it.
01:04This wasn't a symbolic council appointed by the ruling family to look good for outsiders.
01:09This was the oldest directly elected parliament among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
01:1550 seats contested every four years with real teeth attached.
01:19And those teeth mattered.
01:20Third, the National Assembly has the power to dismiss the prime minister or any member
01:25of cabinet through a series of constitutional procedures.
01:28And all cabinet ministers are answerable to the National Assembly.
01:32Think about that for a second.
01:34In a region where ruling families historically answered to nobody, Kuwaiti lawmakers could actually
01:39haul a minister in front of them and grill him.
01:42It didn't come out of nowhere either.
01:44Kuwait had been experimenting with representative bodies for decades before the constitution was
01:49even drafted.
01:50A consultative council was elected as early as 1921.
01:55And while it was weakened by personal rivalries and soon dissolved, it was followed in 1938
02:00by a more powerful legislative council that sought control over decision-making authority.
02:06That 1938 council got shut down within months.
02:09But the people who ran it didn't disappear.
02:12Key figures in the 1938 council, including its chairman Abdullah al-Salem al-Saba, were pivotal
02:18in crafting the constitutional arrangements of the early 1960s.
02:23By which time Abdullah al-Salem was ruler of an independent Kuwait.
02:27So when independence finally came, Kuwait wasn't starting from zero.
02:31It had a blueprint that had been kicking around in one form or another for 40 years.
02:36And the assembly that came out of it went on to be recognized as the longest established
02:41elected body among the Gulf Arab states, with the assembly having had a greater scope of
02:46authority than any other Gulf Arab legislature or consultative body.
02:50Other countries in the region noticed.
02:53Kuwait's constitution and parliament became the blueprint that Bahrain looked at when it
02:57decided to draft its own constitution and elect a national assembly in the early 1970s.
03:03Kuwait wasn't just first.
03:05It was the model everyone else copied their homework from.
03:08Here's the thing that made all of that possible in the first place.
03:12Kuwait had to actually become a country before it could write a constitution.
03:16And it did that years before its neighbors.
03:19Britain formally recognized Kuwait's sovereignty in the middle of 1961.
03:23And just days later, Iraq tried to renew old territorial claims over it.
03:28On June 19, 1961, Britain recognized Kuwait's independence.
03:32But six days later, Iraq renewed its claim, which was rebuffed first by British and then
03:38by Arab League forces.
03:39It took a couple more years before a new Iraqi government would even formally acknowledge
03:44Kuwait's borders.
03:45But the sovereignty stuck.
03:47And what's wild is just how far ahead of the pack that put Kuwait.
03:51Kuwait was the first country among the literal Gulf states to gain full independence from Britain,
03:56regaining its full sovereignty back in 1961.
03:59A full 10 years before other Gulf Cooperation Council member states gained their independence.
04:05Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE were all still under British protection for another decade
04:10after Kuwait had already raised its own flag as an independent state.
04:15That head start wasn't just symbolic bragging rights.
04:18It meant Kuwait had a decade of self-governance, institution building, and oil revenue management
04:23under its belt before its neighbors even got to start their own clocks.
04:27That gap gave Kuwait the chance to play mentor and donor to other Gulf states as they pursued
04:32their own independence, which sets up perfectly for the next first on this list.
04:37The independence declaration also kicked off a wave of nation building at breakneck speed.
04:42New government ministries, new infrastructure, and, as we'll get to, new financial institutions
04:47all sprang up in those early years.
04:49Because a newly sovereign Kuwait suddenly had oil wealth and no colonial administrator telling
04:55it what to do with it. This is the one that surprises people the most.
04:59Within months of becoming independent, Kuwait did something no other developing nation had ever
05:05done before. It started giving away its own money to help other countries develop.
05:10The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development was set up in December of 1961, barely six months
05:16after independence, and its significance goes way beyond the Gulf region.
05:21The Kuwait Fund is the first aid agency in the world to be established by a developing country,
05:27not a wealthy Western power handing out aid with strings attached.
05:31A brand-new, oil-rich but still-developing Arab state deciding to fund infrastructure projects
05:36in poorer nations. The fund's founder, then-finance minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Hamed Al-Jaber Al-Saba,
05:42framed it as a promise to the region. Founded in December 1961, the Kuwait Fund was operational
05:49shortly after the country's independence, ensuring that Kuwait's newly discovered oil wealth was put
05:55to benefit neighbors and friends. Created as a message from the Kuwaiti people that they had not
06:00forgotten friends in need. The scale of it wasn't small either. KFAED was originally established with
06:06a capital of KWD 50 million, later increased to KWD 200 million in 1966. That's Kuwait less than a
06:15decade after gaining independence, already running a multi-million dinar development bank for other
06:20nations. And the mission never really stopped. The Fund for Arab Economic Development is the first
06:26institution in the Middle East that took an active role in international development efforts.
06:31With the objective of assisting Arab and other developing countries in developing their economies.
06:37As oil prices climbed through the 1970s, KFAED's recipient list grew to include developing countries
06:44around the world, well beyond just the Arab region. Today, the Fund still signs grant agreements for
06:49humanitarian projects, everything from infrastructure in Asia to emergency relief funding in conflict zones.
06:56It's a strange kind of first to be proud of. Being the country that proved a small developing nation
07:02could run its own foreign aid program before it even had time to build up its own universities or
07:08hospitals. Which, speaking of universities, brings us to the next one. Before there was a Kuwait
07:13university, if you were a Gulf Arab wanting a proper degree, you were probably getting on a plane to
07:18Cairo, Beirut, or further afield. Kuwait changed that. Kuwait University opened its doors in the fall of
07:251966, and it wasn't a small operation. The university was officially inaugurated on 27 November 1966 to
07:34include the College of Science, the College of Arts, the College of Education, and the College for Women.
07:39And it is the state's first public institution of higher education and research. That College for Women
07:46detail matters. In a region where women's access to formal higher education was basically non-existent at the
07:53time. Kuwait built it into the university's founding structure from day one, not as an afterthought decades
07:59later. The growth since then has been massive. The university has seen its enrollment grow from about
08:05418 to 40,000 students, faculty from 31 to 1,565, colleges from 4 to 17, and administrative and academic
08:15support personnel from 200 to more than 5,000. What started as a handful of buildings teaching
08:22a few hundred students turned into a sprawling institution spread across six campuses, offering
08:27programs in the sciences, engineering, humanities, medical and social sciences. Kuwait didn't stop at
08:34one public university either. Decades later it opened the door to private higher education too. With the
08:40Gulf University for Science and Technology becoming the first private university established in Kuwait in
08:462002, built specifically to supplement what Kuwait University alone couldn't cover for a growing
08:53population. So while other Gulf states were still sending their brightest students abroad for a proper
08:58education, Kuwait was already producing its own graduates at home, doctors, engineers, teachers,
09:05training the workforce that would go on to run the ministries, hospitals, and companies of a rapidly
09:10modernizing nation. Now let's talk about the resource that funded literally everything else on this
09:15list. Kuwait didn't just strike oil, it turned itself into the biggest oil exporter in the entire
09:21Gulf faster than anyone else managed to. By the early 1950s, Kuwait had already pulled ahead of the pack.
09:27By 1952, the country had become the largest oil exporter in the Gulf, and this attracted many foreign
09:34workers to the state. Saudi Arabia had more reserves in the ground, sure. But Kuwait got its
09:39production and export infrastructure humming first, and that early lane changed the entire trajectory
09:45of the country. The scale of that oil wealth is still staggering today. Kuwait currently holds
09:50roughly 7% of global oil reserves, with a production capacity of about 3.15 million barrels a day. And
09:58oil still accounts for around 95% of the country's exports. But it's the head start that made the
10:04difference. That early 1950s boom is what funded the independence movement, funded the constitution
10:10drafting process, funded the aid fund, and funded the university. Every other first on this list traces
10:16back to oil money that started flowing years before Kuwait's neighbors had built out comparable
10:21infrastructure. Kuwait also became a founding member of OPEC, putting it at the table from the very
10:27beginning of the organization. That would go on to shape global oil prices for the rest of the century.
10:32And when the 1991 Gulf War brought catastrophe to that same oil sector, retreating Iraqi forces
10:39set fire to more than 700 of the country's 950 wells. Kuwait rebuilt fast. By the fall of 1991,
10:47the fires, which had consumed about 6 million barrels of oil per day, had been extinguished,
10:52and production soon returned to pre-invasion levels. That's not a small recovery. That's an
10:58entire national oil industry brought back from a literal inferno in a matter of months. All that
11:04oil money had to go somewhere. And Kuwait built the infrastructure to trade it before anyone else
11:10in the region did. Officially, the Kuwait Stock Exchange was established in 1977. But the trading culture
11:17in Kuwait predates that by years. Before independence, an officially sanctioned Stock Exchange
11:22operated, growing to become one of the largest in the world. That's an incredible detail. Kuwait had
11:28serious equity trading happening even before it was a sovereign nation. Analysts covering the region
11:34today still point back to that head start. Kuwait has the oldest stock exchange in the Gulf,
11:39and several of the companies that trade on it are multinational in scope. Decades before Dubai built its
11:45Financial Free Zone, or Saudi Arabia, opened its market to foreign investors. Kuwaiti citizens were already
11:52buying and selling shares in local companies. It wasn't always smooth. There was a wild,
11:57unofficial parallel market too, the Souk Almanek. That fell in 1982 and sent the local economy into a
12:05mild recession, with the resulting debt settlement program not completed until the early 21st century.
12:11But even that crash didn't erase the underlying fact. Kuwait had built a functioning capital market culture
12:17that the rest of the Gulf simply hadn't gotten around to yet. Today that legacy lives on as Bursa Kuwait,
12:24and it still wears the title proudly. Bursa Kuwait continues to provide investors with the expertise of
12:30the region's oldest market, and companies with access to funding in an economy in which investors have deep
12:36pockets. Modern upgrades keep coming too. New trading platforms for bonds and Islamic Sukuk moves toward
12:42inclusion in major global emerging market indexes. But the foundation underneath all of it was laid
12:49decades before any other Gulf exchange existed. We'll close with the most hard-fought first on this list.
12:55Because unlike oil or a stock exchange, this one didn't come easily or quickly. It came after decades of
13:01women organizing, demonstrating, and refusing to give up. The push for women's political rights in Kuwait
13:07started way back. The first bill which would have given women the right to vote in Kuwait was put to
13:13parliament in 1963, but it was ultimately overturned due to pressure from the al-Saba ruling family.
13:19More bills followed and got denied through the 1980s. Then came the Iran-Iraq war and something shifted.
13:26Women who had been volunteering in hospitals and holding families together through the
13:31conflict started demanding recognition for it. With the involvement in the war, it became vital for
13:36women to become hospital volunteers and even push the boundaries to smuggle in food and necessary items
13:42for their families. And since women took the initiative, they also demanded acknowledgement for
13:47their efforts. Progress came in fits and starts after that. 500 women walked off their jobs for an hour in
13:54a
13:54solidarity protest in the mid-1990s. And demonstrations kept going for years after. There was even a
14:01brief moment in 1999 where a decree granted women full voting rights, only for parliament to overrule it
14:08within six months. But the fight didn't stop, and eventually it paid off in the ballot box. In the
14:14parliamentary elections on 16 May 2009, 16 female candidates contested for 50 seats, and four female
14:21candidates won their seats, becoming Kuwait's first female lawmakers. Four women, elected outright by Kuwaiti voters,
14:29taking their seats in the same National Assembly that had been rejecting their right to even cast a ballot
14:34for decades. It made Kuwait the first Gulf state to seat women in a directly elected national legislature.
14:41Not appointed, not symbolic, but voted in by the public in a competitive election. Considering this
14:47is the same country that pioneered the constitution those women were fighting to be included in. It's a fitting
14:53way to close the loop. The oldest elected parliament in the Gulf finally became the first one in the
14:59region to include women elected to sit in it. That seven firsts, a constitution, an independent nation,
15:05a foreign aid fund, a university, an oil boom, a stock exchange, and a parliament with women finally
15:11sitting in it. Small country, big footprint, on how the rest of the Gulf ended up building itself.
Comments