Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

CHAPTER FOURINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONSTECHNOLOGIES IN THE ARABCOUNTRIES: THE PILLARS ANDTOOLS OF KNOWLEDGEIntroductionOver recent decades, unprecedented globaladvancement has occurred in the production,exchange, and processing of information, aswell as its analysis and use. The impact of thisadvance may exceed that brought about by theIndustrial Revolution, since the infrastructuresof information and communications technologies(ICTs), their equipment and their software, havecome to play the role of society’s nervous system.ICTs are valuable tools for the circulation andadaptation of knowledge, as well as beingamong the forms of human knowledge that arethe most dynamic, have the most far-reachingeffects, and are the most embedded in the fabricof modern life. They present many opportunitiesand challenges and mandate the formulation ofspecific strategies. In addition, they demand thededication of human and material resources atthe national level and the improvement ofmechanisms for cooperation at the Arab,regional, and international levels to ensure idealdiffusion and utilisation.Information technology (ICT) represents oneof the main pillars for the establishment of aknowledge society. It represents the key means todeploy and circulate knowledge, in addition to itsrole in developing, supporting, facilitating, andspeeding up scientific and cultural research of thewidest possible scope.The Arab countries have made noteworthyprogress in most of the pivotal aspects of ICTand in particular in infrastructures, whereinvestment is ongoing. In 2008, they recordedlevels of development in technological performanceexceeding those observed in all other regions ofthe world. 1 Four Arab countries have been listedamong the top fifty most ready to utilise ICT,all of them Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)countries (the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, andKuwait, occupying twenty-eighth, thirty-seventh,thirty-ninth, and fiftieth ranks respectively)(World Economic Forum, 2008b).However, scrutiny of the Arab knowledgelandscape reveals that the digital gap remainsand is acute. Investigation of Arabic digitalcontent, which is a guide to the utilisationand production of knowledge in Arabic,demonstrates that the Arab countries and theirsocieties fall short according to most criteria(UNESCWA, 2008). As long as steps arenot taken on various levels in the domain oftechnology policy and legislation, and as long asmany issues related to Arabic language usageon the net are not settled, the state of Arabicknowledge content will never pass an extremelylow threshold but will continue to draw uponother, random sources for content and seeksuccour from past tradition, both good andbad.Performance also varies from one Arabstate to another. The disparity that we witnesstoday in the Arab countries’ utilisation of newtechnologies and in the use and production ofArabic digital content also affects sections ofsociety within each one. This promises furtherfragmentation and extremism until such timethese countries lay the basis for equal access totechnology and its potential.No Arab countries will be able to emergefrom the current embryonic stage in dealing withtechnology and contributing to its developmentunless they open themselves up to those partiesthat, to the extent possible to them, are activeand relevant. Similarly, they must orientthemselves to the indigenisation, adaptation, andreformulation of the production of technologicalknowledge, thus enabling more enlightened andcreative utilisation of the available tools ofThe impact ofthe advancesin informationproduction,exchange, andprocessing mayexceed that broughtabout by theIndustrial RevolutionThe Arab countrieshave madenoteworthy progressin most of the pivotalaspects of ICT. In2008, they recordedlevels of developmentin technologicalperformanceexceeding thoseobserved in all otherregions of the worldINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES143