Building a Knowledge Society in the Arab World

posted on: Nov 14, 2009

Arab societies need nurturing institutions and supportive policies to achieve a significant boost in knowledge production and creation, according to the new Arab Knowledge Report 2009. The report, launched by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on 28 October, maintains that reforms in areas like the media and information technologies are vital if Arab societies are to bridge the knowledge gap.

The Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards productive intercommunication for knowledge, emphasises two central and mutually dependent premises. The first is the connection between knowledge, development and freedom. The second is the close relationship between the demands of development and the building of the knowledge society.

“With solid commitment and long-term vision, the route to the knowledge society will not be impossible,” asserted Adel El Shared, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, which collaborated with UNDP on the report.

The report addresses the factors that impede the knowledge society in the Arab World and assesses the state of education, information and communication technologies, research and innovation in the region. It concludes with a roadmap for action so that the Arab World can integrate itself in a rapidly globalising knowledge society.

“Knowledge is a tool and a goal that influences all levels of society equally and involves all fields. It is a primary avenue for renaissance and human development in the region,” said Adel Abdellatif, Chief of the Regional Programme Division at UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States. “But for this to happen, the right policy, institutional and funding environment must be in place for a knowledge society to materialize.

The report is the first product of the strategic partnership between the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the UNDP which aims to issue a series of analytical reports on the state of knowledge in the Arab World.

Gateway to reform and development
The report highlights that progress has been achieved in areas of economic liberalisation in the Arab World, particularly in the Gulf, resulting in increased foreign investment, expansion in the role of the private sector in the production cycle and modernisation of the region’s infrastructure.

The report argues that the knowledge revolution at the global level offers possible entry points for reform in the region as a whole and calls for the Arab world’s involvement in the global knowledge revolution.

Education: meeting global standards
The report expresses concerns over the state of education in the Arab World. Efforts undertaken in many Arab countries since the 1990s are still to realise the goal of universal education and of meeting global standards with regard to occupational, technical and higher education.

The Arab Knowledge Report 2009 observes that “the lights of knowledge” have not yet reached all adults in equal measures. Major discrepancies —such as between males and females and between younger and older adults— persist between Arab countries and within them.

Women make up some two thirds of the 60 million Arab people who are illiterate. Close to nine million primary school-aged children in the Arab countries do not attend school, and among those who do, over a large number do not pursue education beyond the basic level, hampering economic growth and sustainable development in the region as a whole.

Moreover, the quality of university education needs addressing, says the report. Often, it lacks emphasis in specialized science and modern techniques, including up-to-date communication technology. As a result, the region lacks a critical mass of highly skilled professionals equipped with the ability to innovate and capable of answering the needs of the marketplace.

Progress in ICT:
Arab countries have recorded an improvement in technological performance surpassing any other region of the world in 2008, according the report.
Four Arab countries –the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait — are listed among the 50 countries in the world most ready for investment in this area.

In addition, the increase in the number of Arabic users of the Internet is the highest among the top 10 languages used on the Internet, with almost 60 million Arabic-speakers today.

This exponential growth in Internet use promises greater potentials for success in promoting technological applications in various fields and for enhancing Arabic knowledge performance in general.

The Arab Knowledge Report 2009 stresses the need for further research to understand the interaction of the Arabic language with technological developments in terms of recognition, voice reproduction and semantics. Additionally, the Report reveals that the necessary investment in information and communication technology for the Arab region may surpass the resources of any one Arab country and urges enhanced cooperation.

Research and innovation
Arab innovation performance remains by far the weakest point in the current Arab knowledge landscape, concludes the report. Despite the efforts of scientists and researchers in the region, the low levels of investment by Arab countries in research and development impacts negatively on Arab innovation performance in both quantitative and qualitative terms.

Spending on scientific research does not exceed 0.3 percent of GDP in most Arab countries, 97 percent of which depends on government funding. Levels of annual expenditures on scientific research per capita in the Arab world do not exceed US$10, compared to US$33 in Malaysia, and US $1,304 in Finland.

Moreover, unlike the industrialized world, Arab scientific research agencies are usually attached to higher education institutions rather than to production and service sectors.

Following decades of absence from scientific publishing, Arab researchers and scientists now account for 1.1 percent of global scientific publishing. Yet, the number of patents registered with national institutions remains minimal, finds the report.

Action plan for a future knowledge society:

The report proposes an action plan towards integrating the Arab region into the global knowledge society. The plan rests on three interlinked pillars – broadening freedom of thought and expression in the region, responding better to the development needs of the society, and participating in the global knowledge revolution.

David Morgan
Global Arab Network