The United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Regional Bureau of Arab States has published the 2009 Arab Knowledge Report, in collaboration with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation in Abu Dhabi.
The report, written by "a select group of thinkers and scholars from all parts of the Arab region," provides a comprehensive review of the state of knowledge in the Arab world as a foundation for the creation of a "knowledge society."
The report notes that the Arab countries have made considerable progress on three key education indicators, namely literacy rates, secondary school enrolment rates, and enrolment in tertiary (university level) education. The advance in literacy is especially impressive: while in 1980 literacy stood at 55 percent for males and 25 percent for females, by 2005 the literacy rates climbed to 82 percent for males and 62 percent for females, respectively.
Despite these encouraging achievements, there are still 60 million Arabs, two-thirds of them women, who are illiterate, and some nine million school-age children who do not attend school. In terms of secondary-school enrolment, only 55 percent of children attend, compared with 80 percent in the industrialized world. The low enrolment in secondary schools and subsequently in higher education raises questions about the capacity of the Arab countries to build a knowledge society.
As for tertiary level education, student enrolment in pure, life, applied sciences and mathematics lags behind enrolment in literature, social sciences, law and business administration. This runs contrary to national aspirations for generating "human capital capable of closing the scientific and digital gap" between the Arab countries and the industrialized world. The report concludes that the "quantitative inroads" achieved by the Arab countries in terms of the number of students enrolled in schools have not kept pace with the "qualitative inroads," thereby hampering the ability of many of these countries to participate in the knowledge economy.
Many Arab countries, particularly those with oil wealth, have made considerable progress in the area of information and communications technology, and are ranked fairly high by the indicators of the World Economic Forum. However, reviewing the Arab knowledge landscape as a whole, the report finds that the digital gap "remains and is acute," particularly when it comes to "digital content" used as "a guide to the utilization and production of knowledge in Arabic."
One of the manifestations of the digital gap is Internet use. Except in four Gulf countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE - the level of Internet use in the Arab countries is close to 17%, significantly lower than the prevailing world average of 22 percent.
Arab Research centers, both public and private, are more preoccupied with the mechanical transfer of technology than with indigenizing knowledge so as to "allow for innovation and local knowledge production." Expenditure on scientific research is meager and does not exceed 0.3 percent of GDP in most Arab countries (compared to an average of 2.68 percent of GDP in the United States, 3.18 percent in Japan and 3.8 percent in Sweden).
In the age of globalization, the flight of human capital is an important component of the flow of knowledge. With opportunities for research constrained by lack of funds, poor emoluments for researchers and bureaucratic bottlenecks, the Arab countries suffer from a severe drain of highly qualified human capital. Data on this is limited, but it is estimated that 45 percent of Arab students who study abroad choose to stay there. The report suggests, though, this may be a slight exaggeration, that the value of this "exported" Arab human capital equals the value of the Arab oil and gas exports.
Interestingly, it is the four GCC countries that suffer the greatest brain drain. On a scale of 1 to 7, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait UAE and Qatar score 4.6, 4.7, 5.4, 5.6 and 5.7, respectively, whereas Egypt and Syria score 2.3. One possible explanation is that the oil-exporting countries can afford to send the largest number of individuals to study abroad and hence have the highest brain drain rate.
The report offers a "vision" for the creation of a knowledge society in the Arab countries. This vision requires development along three major axes:
- creation of an enabling environment
- transfer and indigenization of knowledge
- deployment of knowledge at the service of sustainable human development.
The first axis requires expanding the scope of freedoms, whereas the second requires the development of the Arab language and the revitalization of Arab thought. The third axis requires the deployment of knowledge in the Arab countries' economies, so as to engage with the economic networks, electronic market, and methods of financial intercourse required by today's new global economy.
(extract of "The UNDP Arab Knowledge Report 2009 - Review and Analysis," by Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, The Middle East Media Research Institute, January 19, 2010. Copyright 1998-2010 The Middle East Media Research Institute) |