Building a knowledge society

The recently released Arab Knowledge Report 2009 examines in depth the current state of Arab knowledge. Jointly sponsored by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the report is the first in a series that addresses the state of knowledge in the Arab region, with a view of knowledge as the primary source of renaissance and human development. It derives its legitimacy from the pressing need for information about knowledge performance in the region. Herewith, some excerpts from the report:

Chief among the numerous reasons for the current Arab interest in the subject is the desire not to miss out on the anticipated effects of the knowledge revolution and to be alert to the roles it plays in generating progress, whether on the political, economic, or social level.

The report's conception of knowledge has been broadened to include the spirit of knowledge, and thus its enlightenment and development dimensions. The report has as its premise the right to knowledge, which is non-negotiable, especially in an Arab world that still suffers from knowledge and digital illiteracy.

‘Knowledge environments'

Most indicators show that Arab environments, as a whole, still lack the most important mechanisms for empowerment based on knowledge. Political, social, and economic restrictions are the rule, freedoms the exception. Achievements in public freedom, social and economic freedoms, and the freedom to create are modest in Arab countries, despite a degree of progress and some signs that give grounds for hope. The general trend of freedoms in the Arab world is from bad to worse, not from good to better.

Freedom of expression

Freedom of thought and expression is a principal component, along with political participation, of the enabling environment that contributes to the advancement of knowledge performance. Despite some improvement in some Arab countries in the realms of political participation, democratic reform and human rights and freedoms, there has been palpable retreat in others. This is because the democratic opening up in the last decade did not achieve the desired results.

Talk of reform is common in a number of Arab countries, but seems in most instances to be suspended in the air, unable to come to ground in the real world. The Freedom of the Press index published by Reporters without Borders ranks all Arab countries among those which restrict the press, though to differing degrees. This index delineates the margin of freedom that both journalists and media organisations enjoy and the efforts they expend on behalf of press freedom. We find that the situation in the majority of Arab countries according to this index falls between ‘very serious' and ‘difficult'.

Digital content and the internet in the Arab world have not escaped censorship and government interference in recent years, either. The list of the 15 most internet-hostile countries in the world includes four Arab countries, and five of them appear on another list of 10 so-called ‘countries under observation'. The Arab media have been established and continue to develop under the hegemony of Arab governments or large multimedia companies operating on the Arab regional level.

With the continuing restrictions on freedom of thought and expression in many parts of the region, it is difficult to foresee an upsurge in Arab knowledge.

Corruption

In Arab countries, there clearly is a direct correlation between the decline in the levels of freedom and democracy, the spread of corruption, and the decline of government performance. However, the UAE and Qatar recorded the best performance in combating corruption on the Arab front. The most important indication of this is that they maintained this good performance in the Corruption Perception Index from 2003-2008, in addition to achieving a marked improvement in the 2008 report. Jordan, Morocco, Algeria and Libya also recorded improvement, while Lebanon maintained its status quo, and performance deteriorated in the remainder of the Arab world.

Repression

While most Arab constitutions stipulate human rights and freedoms, martial laws such as anti-terrorism laws serve to limit these rights in practice. Some Arab states acknowledge the principle of a plurality of political parties while practising repression in the name of security and on occasion throwing leaders of opposition parties into prison.

Economic freedoms

Economic freedom and the encouragement of competition within a stimulating economic environment are elements of success in connecting with the world on the basis of knowledge. The relative growth of open economies depends on the ability to innovate and acquire market share among consumers. The Arab countries most prepared to produce and put knowledge to use are those that observe the largest number of the cluster of responsible economic freedoms encouraging local competition. Most Arab countries studied made acceptable progress in economic freedoms between 2003 and 2006.

Poverty

It is obvious that the Arab poor, some of whom are growing poorer, suffer from social marginalisation and economic privation, and that they do not enjoy equality with the remainder of their fellow citizens. If the poor represent the most important and most dangerous group among the marginalised, then class differences represent another large barrier to achieving social equity and freedom. And all of the above have powerful repercussions in the domain of knowledge acquisition and production.

Religious radicalism

The report notes that a number of factors may have assisted the spread of this radical current among broad social groupings in the Arab world, especially the easily influenced young, namely the spread of poverty, repression, social marginalisation, political frustration and repeated political defeats, not to mention the waves of Westernising propaganda broadcast by the news media. As a result, obscurantism has increased.

Pioneering institutions

Despite the lack of vision and institutional practice and despite the weakness of the legislative framework within which to promote the advancement of the knowledge society in the Arab world, we find many illuminating institutional attempts aimed at embracing and propagating knowledge initiatives.

In the UAE, among the most important initiatives in support of knowledge and creativity has been the establishment in 2007 of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, a personal initiative of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, who allocated $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) as a knowledge endowment.

Education

In their educational systems, most Arab countries face multi-layered problems aggravated by the many innovations introduced by the revolution in information technology. In the past 25 years, Arab states have achieved remarkable progress on all indicators used to gauge the dissemination of knowledge among their people, from lower illiteracy rates to higher numbers of university graduates.

But these achievements should not blind us to the failures that have prevented many Arab countries from emerging into the knowledge society. In the Arab world, more than 60 million people, two thirds of them women, are illiterate, and some nine million school-age children are out of school.

Although the laws in most Arab countries provide for compulsory education up to at least the end of the intermediate level, only eight countries have attained gross enrolment ratios meeting or approaching the expected rate of more than 95 per cent.

Educational reform

Many Arab countries have opened new branches and universities in many of their cities, but not in accordance with any comprehensive ordering of the actual needs of these countries. Many Arab countries have a shortage in student enrolment in the pure, life and applied sciences and maths in favour of the schools of literature, social sciences, law and business administration.

Arab higher educational institutes under study have a 50 per cent success rate of producing acceptable levels of knowledge in computer science. But this is not good enough to generate a critical mass of highly skilled human resources capable of engaging in the processes of development, renewal, innovation and other such activities that would propel Arab countries towards the knowledge economy.

Flight of human capital

The Arab region is considered one of the most active in terms of the export of highly qualified human capital equipped with university degrees. Indeed, human capital is among its major exports, possibly equalling oil and gas in value. The little data available on this indicates that 45 per cent of Arab students who study abroad do not return to their home countries, that 34 per cent of skilled doctors in Britain are Arabs, and that the Arab world has contributed 31 per cent of the skilled migration from developing states to the West, including 50 per cent of doctors, 23 per cent of engineers, and 15 per cent of scientists.

ICT

Information and communications technology (ICT) represents one of the main pillars for the establishment of a knowledge society. Arab countries have made noteworthy progress in most of the pivotal aspects of ICT. In 2008, they recorded levels of development in technological performance exceeding those observed in all other regions of the world. Some Arab countries are in the top third of countries in the world with respect to a number of ICT indicators, but the Arab country with the highest levels of internet use ranks only 38th with respect to internet use by businesses. Also in most of the Arab countries the number of computers per person is less than the global average.

Research and innovation

The available data indicate that, in all Arab countries, performance in the field of innovation is weak in comparison to that of the other pillars of knowledge The extremely low amounts spent by Arab countries on research and development have had a negative impact on Arab innovation performance in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Despite the high GDP in oil-producing Arab countries, their ranking on the innovation and scientific research index remains low in comparison to other Arab countries with lower incomes but which are more productive with regard to research and innovation.

Looking ahead

The right to knowledge should be considered the cornerstone of human development. The plan's higher aim is to spur public debate and positive movement towards a knowledge society built on solid foundations and under the firm control of Arab society through the partnership of various sectors.

The major challenge lies in changing the general culture of society and the priorities of officialdom throughout the Arab world, so that there is a universal conviction that building solid knowledge capital requires the creation of learning curricula in accordance with a solid educational philosophy and a clear vision.