Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge

This 332-page report is the product of a collaborative methodological and scholarly effort to study the Arab knowledge landscape. Produced jointly by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) and the United Nations Development Programme/Regional Bureau for Arab States (UNDP/RBAS), the report advances the core conclusion that more funding and freedoms are needed if the Arab world is to reach its goal of becoming a knowledge-based society.

Drawing on analyses and conclusions based on events and available data and information up to the end of the first quarter of 2009, the report comprises a preamble and 6 chapters. In brief, the preamble contextualises the report, reviewing the main challenges on the regional, political, and economic scene and highlighting their pressures and impacts on Arab knowledge performance. The preamble also devotes a summary section to a rapid overview of the state of knowledge over recent years. Specifically, [footnote numbers removed by editor], "Arab states have, over the last quarter century, witnessed marked progress on the indicator set relating to the proliferation of knowledge among their citizens, starting with the drop in illiteracy rates and ending with the numbers of people holding higher university degrees....In 1980, the average adult literacy rate in the Arab countries had reached approximately 55 per cent for males and 25 per cent for females. In 2005, this average had reached 82 per cent for males and 62 per cent for females..."

However, "Despite the Arab region having spent 5 per cent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and 20 per cent of government budgets on education over the past forty years...many...key problems still form a major obstacle to the establishment of the knowledge society. In terms of qualitative performance, studies from 2003 make clear that students from Arab countries score much lower than world averages in grade-8 international tests in the sciences and mathematics....Similar international studies undertaken in 2007 show that the low performance of pupils from Arab countries in mathematics and the sciences continues..."

With regard to information and communication technologies (ICTs), "it is evident that the Arab states have made reasonable progress, in that the region has continued to invest in infrastructure, recording, in 2008, progress in technological performance that exceeded that in all other regions of the world....Four Arab countries came within the top fifty states most ready to utilise ICT and eleven Arab countries witnessed a rise in the value of the ICT index in comparison with 1995. Yet, despite these achievements, the gap between the Arab countries and the rest of the world remains substantial. The performance of the Arab countries also varies from state to state. Such variation...holds true also for the different social categories within each country, and warns of more fragmentation and extremism should these countries not institute equal access to technology.....Even though some Arab countries that enjoy high revenues occupy advanced positions on the ICT index, these positions remain lower than those occupied by other countries of the world that enjoy comparable national revenues."

"...In spite of progress on the research and innovation index, particularly from a quantitative angle, in recent years, Arab innovation performance remains the major weak spot on the current Arab knowledge scene, and the scientific innovation and research gap between the Arab countries and the rest of the advanced regions of the world remains clear, deep, and serious..." For instance, expenditure on research in Arab countries averaged just 0.2 per cent of GDP, compared with the global average of 1.7 per cent. This limited spending results in less than 40 patent registrations per year. Hani Helal, Egypt's minister of higher education and research, comments: "Roughly 73 per cent of scientific research in Egypt is carried out through universities while less than 10 per cent is attributed to the private sector."

The report indicates that there has been an increase in science collaboration between Arab states and the rest of the world, but not all researchers benefit from this. "Some technologies are non-exportable to developing countries," says Ahmed El-Hawatky, a network security engineer at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport. "In that case, I end up with incomplete research." The report also reviews contentious issues linked to identity, such as language reform. In so doing, it seeks to highlight the pressing nature of this issue in the hope that the Arabic language will survive to provide an effective and responsive vehicle for the gains made by the new knowledge technologies.

Yet, "...The weakest point in Arab knowledge performance may be the lack of enabling environments appropriate to the establishment of a knowledge society, particularly in relation to the key index of freedom; as a whole, the Arab states have made no tangible progress with respect to freedom of thought and of expression. Apart from the proliferation of Arab satellite channels and internet blogs, which have provided a safety valve for a noticeable upsurge in activity by the region's youth, the outlook for freedom of thought and of expression remains gloomy. Some Arab governments have imposed restrictions on Arab satellite broadcasting. Additional broadcasting and media legislation and laws have been enacted which have strengthened governments' grip on the media, press, journalists, internet blogs and bloggers, as well as intellectuals. Most media and knowledge diffusion mechanisms remain state-owned and operate alongside a limited number of large media and entertainment companies transmitting to the Arab countries from the countries of the Gulf or from outside the region."

In this context, "...There must be a focus on the impossibility of achieving an Arab knowledge and development renaissance through reliance solely on improvement in economic freedom - even if the latter is supported by intellectual property rights - given the continuation of the restrictions imposed on other freedoms, particularly those of thought and of expression. It is not possible to create Arab environments that stimulate knowledge without the existence of an integrated package of freedoms. Similarly, any hope of the equitable social distribution of the results of development will disappear in the absence of a democratic climate that provides popular oversight and fights corruption."

In its conclusion, the report formulates a vision and action plan to respond to the knowledge gaps that have been identified. The plan rests on 3 foundations: The first is related to the necessary bases for the knowledge society, bases that are defined in terms of 3 principles: expansion of the scope of freedoms; harmonisation and correspondence with the needs of human development; and openness and intercommunication. The second foundation centres around the establishment of the enabling environment, the indigenisation of knowledge, and its deployment in the service of development and renaissance in the Arab nation. The third pillar of the plan sketches priorities for action. Here, tasks are prioritised in terms of urgency according to the data on knowledge gaps in the Arab countries.

The Arab Knowledge Report 2009 initiates a series of reports that are to follow in the years to come with the aim of building a database of information on and prescriptions and proposals for the improvement of Arab knowledge performance. It is hoped that the data and results included in this report will support the possibility of approaches from other angles to the subjects of knowledge, freedom, and development.