Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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21As a result of the nature of composite indices that are relied upon to evaluate the availability of e-governmentservices or the readiness to provide them to citizens and the need for surveys on the ground to define the valueof their component parts, it is necessary to read the trends revealed by these indicator values with a considerableamount of caution and circumspection. It is worth pointing out the variation in values given on “e-GovernmentReadiness Index” developed by UNPAN for Mauritania, for example, in comparison with the scores achieved onthe index of “availability of e-government services” adopted by the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM)for the same states. While the two indices differ from each other, they are without doubt connected in variousaspects, and it would therefore be expected that at least in terms of ranking the states they would conform toeach other within reasonable limits. Yet what can be observed is Mauritania coming in 162nd place out of 182states according to the UNPAN index, with Jordan in eighteenth place and Egypt twentieth for comparison, whilethe KAM index ranks Mauritania above Jordan and Egypt.22Without the knowledge giver and receiver being restricted to the same site.23World Bank, Information for Development Programme (InfoDev), 2005; British Educational Communications andTechnology Agency (BECTA), 2004; and Tinio, 2003.24To this end European states have relied on programmes such as the “European Computer Driving Licence”(ECDL) as a means to make teaching and administrative frameworks in schools acquire the appropriate skills.OECD plans also include subjecting ICT to develop teaching and learning methods.25Joint study on ICT in education, ESCWA and UNESCO regional office in Beirut.26Comprising word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing software, a calculator, and projectmanagement software.27Based on a country performance assessment scale ranging from one to seven.28World Bank, KAM database, http://info.worldbank.org/etools/kam2/KAM_page5.asp on 12 December 2008.29At the time of its inception this project included Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Palestine.30See the website of the Supreme Education Council in Qatar, http://www.english.education.gov.qa/content/general/detail/7117 on 26 January 2009.31Some sources consider open universities to be virtual universities. This is not necessarily the case, however,though open universities tend to use some of the methods of virtual universities. On this basis, it is possible todeem the Arab Open University a virtual university. It was launched in 2002 with headquarters in Kuwait andbranches in Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.32See the website of the Virtual University of Tunisia, www.uvt.rnu.tn.33If Morocco and Algeria are disregarded, the graph permits the relationship between business internet use andper capita income in the Arab states to be represented by a straight line almost parallel to the horizontal axis.This indicates that there is no significant correlation between business internet use and per capita income.34Website of the World Health Organisation, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, http://www.emro.who.int/Arabic on July 2008.35Website of al-‘Arab al-Yawm newspaper, http://www.alarabalyawm.net/pages.php?news_id=101464 on 28January 2009.36This graph shows consumption rates for paper in all its forms. Recent data on consumption of paper exclusivelyfor writing and printing are not available, and this is of greater significance in terms of the various forms ofcontent. However, the quantity of paper used for writing and printing is estimated at half of total consumption.The figure relies on 2004 data.37Unambiguous machine understanding of Arabic texts requires their vocalisation. Naturally, before beingvocalised, the sentences of an Arabic text must be parsed.38One Arab company has launched automated indexing and summarising systems, based on purely statisticalfoundations, that summarise the words present, define the subject of the text, and summarise the collectionof sentences that contain significant content. These systems, however, were developed on the basis of outdatedtechnologies, in terms of their use of either statistical linguistic models or analysis of the Arabic narrativestructure.39The Sakhr company has developed an Arabic speech engine. A large US company has also developed anArabic speech recognition system using a statistical basis. This system has been used to develop an automateddictation (speech to text) system, but the error level remains high and it is in need of automated systems formorphological, syntactical, and lexical processing in order to correct a larger proportion of errors.40The Chinese government has been a frontrunner in the use of open source software on all governmentcomputers. It has developed the Chinese version of the Linux open source operating system through the ChineseLinux Extension (CLE) project. Local government and city councils in many EU cities are also making use of opensource software.41The University of Aleppo has convened two conferences on open source software. These discussed aspectsrelated to the arabization of open source software and means to promote it within Arab societies.42E.g., the Taiwanese plan for the introduction of open source.43Building national capacity in a wide series of information and communication technologies represents a keyaim of development policies in all the countries of the world. The attempt to achieve this goal in the Arab statesmust be accomplished with an eye to priorities that take into consideration manifest and latent challenges.INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES177
Technology research and development in fields closer to the key concepts and the frontiers of knowledge mustbe undertaken in support of high quality qualifications and in preparation for coming stages that aim to develophardware and software systems and introduce them to regional and international markets. It is necessary atthe same time, however, to focus in the early stages of strategic action to build national capability for the idealutilisation of available technologies.44ICT provides valuable opportunities to improve the efficiency of the educational process in addition to thesupport it offers to e-learning programmes. Networks and virtual incubators could also be created to workin this field. Among the features enjoyed by such solutions to the research and development crisis and theeducation crisis in the Arab states are the possibilities they offer for many researchers of Arab origin who occupydistinguished positions in universities and laboratories in the advanced nations of the world to participate insuch networks. As previously indicated, the net is overflowing with learning resources, in the form of units andmodules, that can be arabized and exploited to develop interactive curricula.45Among the most prominent of these is the World Summit on the Information Society, which was held in twostages, the first in Geneva in 2003, the second in Tunis in 2005.46There are many institutions within the private, public, and NGO sectors whose areas of operation are distributedacross a series of fields including higher education, scientific research, and technological development andwhich are charged with drawing up programmes and launching regional initiatives in the ICT domain that aim tostimulate the development and growth of this sector and the utilisation of its results to benefit partner nations.There are many examples of such programmes in the EU. These programmes and initiatives mostly handle thelinkage of partner states by regional communications networks or by modernising the backbone networks.International coalitions are also formulating regional policies aimed at finding ideal solutions to the technical oreconomic problems afflicting the partner states or completing national strategies, consolidating the position ofthe region on the global level, cooperating in the use of open source software, developing applications of thesetechnologies in the media, entertainment, and healthcare fields, providing job opportunities, or reducing poverty.47Technological development in the area of data mining technology will permit more detailed and deeperunderstanding of service user behaviour and the prediction of web surfers’ demands.178 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009
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United Nations Development Programm
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This Report has been produced throu
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This year’s report may perhapsbes
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ICT in the Arab countries and reinf
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CONTENTSPREAMBLEIntroductionPrelimi
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Quantitative indicatorsTertiary edu
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LIST OF BOXESBox 1 The Effect of th
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Figure 5-7 Published scientific art
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Table 21 Time devoted to secondary
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The knowledgefield and revolutionto
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The literature onhuman rights place
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Arabic istechnologicallypoor in com
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Intercommunicationwith the self mea
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Table 2CountryGroupGroup 1: Oilecon
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Figure 2504540353025201510508070605
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In the period2003-2007, morethan 83
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eversion, in many cases, is not ass
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Thus the Arab region in general, an
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knowledge over recent years. This w
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However, this progress remains limi
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CHAPTER ONETHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWOR
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The successfuldeployment ofthe know
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The knowledgerevolution atthe end o
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Technology, theeconomy, andsociety,
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No one pursuesknowledge forits own
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The Report adoptsa concept ofknowle
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The goal of thiscritical review isn
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In our bidfor economicand humandeve
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The political reformproject remains
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Globalisation isdependent oninforma
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The battle overknowledge in oursoci
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The most obviousexample of the gapb
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BOX 1-9The Virtual as an Interrogat
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The upsurge intechnologicalprowess
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Collective humaneffort must bedirec
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End Notes1Epistemic saturation refe
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CHAPTER TWOARAB KNOWLEDGE PERFORMAN
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current economic crisis in the autu
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FIGURE 2-3Perceptions of corruption
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technology infrastructure, blogs ar
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nations continue to occupy their pr
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to the third oil boom, which reache
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have realised a degree of progress
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FIGURE 2-8Index of global competiti
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FIGURE 2-10Net exports of manufactu
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namely the spread of poverty, socia
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TABLE 2-2Arab Countries according t
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while some of these nine countries
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and political participation. All of
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first INTEL computer club; INTELis
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from the ages of thirteen to twenty
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solutions that allow use of the ava
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to this trajectory, a consumer, not
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specific cases.These flexibilities
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CHAPTER THREEEDUCATION AND THE FORM
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FIGURE 3-1Education and human resou
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of the qualitative knowledge capita
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TABLE 3-1CountryOpportunities for b
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Virtually the only area in which Ar
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must possess if they aspire to part
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TABLE 3-2Opportunities for the form
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General secondary education andthe
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elatively high enrolment rates of b
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Available data shows large discrepa
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TABLE 3-3Comparison of overall resu
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females. According to this data, to
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show educational accomplishments am
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inroads well beyond their current f
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FIGURE 3-6aMaths performance of eig
Page 144 and 145: BOX 3-8The Contribution of Non-Publ
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Page 148 and 149: emained encumbered by the prevailin
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Page 152 and 153: countries and providing a picture o
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Page 156: 89Finland, for example, whose stude
Page 160 and 161: CHAPTER FOURINFORMATION AND COMMUNI
Page 162 and 163: FIGURE 4-1ICT index values for Arab
Page 164 and 165: countries and the Arab countries. T
Page 166 and 167: Arab countries-Egypt, Algeria, Leba
Page 168 and 169: of Arabic content and its low rate
Page 170 and 171: exchange of future technology servi
Page 172 and 173: of national partnerships aimed at s
Page 174 and 175: TABLE 4-2Readiness of Arab countrie
Page 176 and 177: as the implementation of programmes
Page 178 and 179: BOX 4-2Evaluating the Performance o
Page 180 and 181: of common principles that guarantee
Page 182 and 183: data from various sources and then
Page 184 and 185: FIGURE 4-11Paper consumption and in
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Page 188 and 189: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEAND FUTURE INI
Page 190 and 191: within bounds that do not hinder bu
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Page 196: CHAPTER FIVEARAB PERFORMANCE IN RES
Page 199 and 200: FIGURE 5-1Innovation system index f
Page 201 and 202: The extremely lowamounts spentby Ar
Page 203 and 204: It has become clearthat the wager o
Page 205 and 206: Joint researchprojects among Arabsc
Page 207 and 208: Theoretically, themore researcherst
Page 209 and 210: Average expenditureon scientific re
Page 211 and 212: BOX 5-6Jordan’s “A Professor in
Page 213 and 214: BOX 5-8For the last three decades,
Page 215 and 216: FIGURE 5-7Published scientific arti
Page 217 and 218: A review of theperiod from 2002to 2
Page 219 and 220: Social scienceresearch holds aspeci
Page 221 and 222: Most Arabic-languageperiodicals in
Page 223 and 224: Arab societies arefilled with examp
Page 225 and 226: Human capitalis among Arabcountries
Page 227 and 228: TABLE 5-12Trade in technological pr
Page 229 and 230: It is ironic thatalthough the Arabw
Page 231 and 232: End Notes1UNESCO Institute for Stat
Page 234: CHAPTER SIXBUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE S
Page 237 and 238: The most conspicuousfeature of thek
Page 239 and 240: A review of nationalplans in the Ar
Page 241 and 242: The positiveachievements inthe Arab
Page 243 and 244: One of the keyfoundations of thevis
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Freedom andinstitutionalisationare
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Priorities are subjectto a great de
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If we admit thatlanguage is avehicl
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The major challengelies in changing
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Deployment is linkedto the creation
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The variousproposals includedin thi
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ReferencesReferences in Arabic‘Ab
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the President of the ICRC Expresses
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al-Duwal al-‘Arabiyya, UNESCO’s
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Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development asF
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Castells, Manuel. (1998/2001). LaSo
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the Age of Technology).• Binsa‘
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egional and international levels an
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ANNEX 3. MEASUREMENT OF THE ARABCOU
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indicators that make up the pillar.
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countries’ rankings among the cou
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of the Arab countries and suffer fr
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Freedom House and Heritage Institut
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Endnotes* This annex was prepared b
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STATISTICAL ANNEXGENERAL INDICATORS
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Table 3: Economic IndicatorsCountry
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KNOWLEDGE PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENTST
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Table 7: Press Freedom Index in the
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EDUCATIONTable 9: Adult literacy ra
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Table 11: Gross enrolment ratios in
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Table 13: Adult illiterate populati
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Table 16: Net and gross enrolment i
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Table 18: Lessons in basic educatio
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Table 20: Literacy rates among youn
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Table 22: Evolution of enrolment ra
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Table 24: Student enrolment rates i
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Table 26: Distribution of graduates
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Table 28: Estimated educational lev
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Table 30: Enrolment rates in non-go
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RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONTable 32: Nu
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Table 34: Indicators on research an
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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHN
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FIGURE b-2Growth in average number
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competition between the internet se
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Table c-4: Ranking of a group of Ar
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United Nations Development Programm
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