It is difficult to pin down the moment when things started changing in Kuwait. The country’s slow progress, tortoise-like in comparison with its rapidly developing Gulf neighbors Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), often translates into dismissal by the rest of the world, which, seeing Kuwait as going nowhere fast, moves on to other, more interesting things.

Facts on the ground, albeit scattershot and mostly underreported, tell a different story. Kuwait has a strategic plan and is slowly but surely implementing it. The stagnancy and political infighting that marred much of the period between 2006 and 2013 has been replaced by a quiet determination and a concerted effort by the leadership to position Kuwait for the future.

This is not the future envisioned by the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, perhaps, not the future hoped for by energy multinationals or imagined by regional rivals. Kuwait is forging its own path, shunning the bright lights, big city stratagem of Dubai, avoiding the glitzy, world-attention grabbing events in Qatar and instead focusing on fundamentals: infrastructure, human capital, finance, public administration, health care and the environment.

In quiet but important ways, Kuwait is making progress.