The paper provides an overview of the key challenges, which face GCC countries in their efforts to attain sustainable growth and development. Their capacity to diversify the economy outside the energy sector, youth unemployment and labour market imbalances represent good examples for these challenges. The paper shows the efforts made by GCC countries to diversify their economies and to have sustained growth. Achievements were not impressive in terms of innovation and human development but relative satisfactory performance is obtained in the domain of governance and infrastructure development. As a policy recommendation, the GCC countries need to adapt new diversification strategies by encouraging innovation and developing the skills of the human resources.
Keywords: Innovation, Oman, Sustainable Growth, labour market imbalances, oil
