Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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are characterised by flexibility towards,and sometimes independence from, thepublic sector, as well as by diversity offunding sources, and the ability to attractspecialists from abroad and guarantee therelative stability of national specialists. Asignificant percentage of their scientificproduction comes from universities andprivate centres, and they are able tobenefit from international cooperationprogrammes and from partnerships withservice and industry sectors, as well asfrom independent national support funds(the UAE, Qatar).THE CAPACITY OF RESEARCHCENTRES FOR INNOVATIONDue to the lack of detailed and reliable data,it is difficult to conduct a comprehensiveevaluation of the capacity of scientificresearch institutions for innovation, bothfor the Arab countries in general and onan individual country basis. The reportsof the World Economic Forum (WorldEconomic Forum, 2008-2009) list anumber of composite indicators thatprovide a preliminary ranking of Arabcountries on the basis of the quality oftheir research centres’ production and theassimilation of information technologyinto their activities (Tables 5-1 and 5-2).Tables 5-1 and 5-2 above rankfourteen Arab countries that containmore than three-quarters of the Arabregion’s population; Malaysia and Turkeyare added for comparison. The mostconspicuous facts reflected by the data arethe following:• Qatar obtained a relatively acceptableranking on the global level and first placeamong the Arab countries (rank, thirty),while four Arab countries (Tunisia,Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait)attained middling ranks (forty-second,fifty-first, fifty-second, and fifty-fourthrespectively) with regard to the qualityof their research institutions. Theremaining Arab countries covered bythe report placed lower on the list.Malaysian research centres, known forTABLE 5-1CountryThe quality of Arab research institutions 6The quality of Arab research institutionsRank among 134 countries Rank among Arab countriesQatar 30 1Tunisia 42 2Jordan 51 3Saudi Arabia 52 4Kuwait 54 5Oman 59 6UAE 74 7Syria 89 8Morocco 94 9Egypt 96 10Bahrain 100 11Algeria 108 12Turkey 52 ..Malaysia 20 ..Source: The World Economic Forum, 2008bTABLE 5-2CountryRanking of Arab countries in the Assimilation ofTechnology index 7 (out of 134 countries)Technology assimilation atthe institutional levelNetworkedreadinessUAE 14 27Qatar 40 29Tunisia 34 38Bahrain 36 37Oman 95 50Kuwait 28 57Jordan 35 44Egypt 63 76Morocco 70 86Syria 87 94Libya 97 101Algeria 128 108Mauritania 79 109Saudi Arabia 44 40Malaysia 21 28Turkey 48 61Sources: World Economic Forum website http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2009/rankings/pdf on 12 June 2009.ARAB PERFORMANCE IN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION189
Theoretically, themore researchersthere are, the higherthe quality andquantity of research.Yet this correlationbetween the numberof researchersand the yields ofscientific researchdoes not hold trueof the Arab regionTABLE 5-3their quality, ranked twentieth globally.• The UAE obtained a relatively highranking (fourteen) among the thirtytop nations heading the institutionaltechnology assimilation list, outperformingthe comparison countries(Malaysia and Turkey). Kuwait cametwenty-eighth, surpassing the secondcomparison country (Turkey). Someother Arab countries (Tunisia, Jordan,and Bahrain) were close behind, comingin at thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, andthirty-sixth respectively, while the restof the Arab countries lagged behind.UAE and Qatar also recorded relativelyhigh ranking technology preparednessindicator at the global level, occupyingtwenty-seventh and twenty-ninthplace respectively and higher than theremaining Arab countries.The number of researchers in the Arab region 9CountryResearchers per millioninhabitantsESTIME 2007COMSTECH1998-2007Availability of researchers(out of 134 countries),World Economic Forum2008-2009Tunisia 492 1013 10Algeria 170 .. 41Egypt .. .. 47Morocco 166 782 68Jordan 280 1927 39Kuwait .. 69 62Libya .. 361 44Syria .. 29 40Saudi Arabia .. .. 43Qatar .. 1236 53UAE .. .. 75Oman .. .. 95Bahrain .. .. 94Iraq .. .. ..Lebanon 200 .. ..Sudan .. 263 ..Occupied PalestinianTerritories.. .. ..World Economic Forum, in English, 2008bWorld Bank Database, Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM), on 10 June 2009ESTIME, in English 2007COMSTECH, 2007• Most of the Arab countries occupiedmedium ranks (from thirtieth to onehundredth) for all indicators, withnoticeable improvement in theindicators of technology assimilationand technological preparedness in theArab Gulf countries (Kuwait, UAE,Qatar, Bahrain, Oman). This points tothe presence of a number of specialfactors in these countries, includingfinancial prosperity and the role ofglobal oil and gas companies inintroducing modern technologies tothe oil-producing Arab countries.THE PERFORMANCE OF ARABRESEARCHERSTheoretically, the more researchers thereare, the higher the quality and quantity ofresearch. Yet this correlation between thenumber of researchers and the yields ofscientific research does not hold true ofthe Arab region, partly due to the difficultyin defining the role of the researcher there,even within a single country. The conceptand specifications of the researcher’smission vary in the Arab region, just asinternational descriptions vary for the fulltimeresearcher and the research professor.Countries need to produce comparableand analysable indicators for these kindsof issues.Teaching staff at Arab universities,who constitute the majority of researchersin the Arab region, are burdened withteaching duties of twice the scope of thoseof their colleagues in Western universities.It is rare for the actual research activity ofteaching staff in government and mostprivate universities to exceed 5 to 10 percent of their total academic duties, whereasit forms 35-50 per cent of academic dutiesin European and American universities,which consider this high percentage amarker of the practical value of highereducation and of the effective role playedby university professors. 8 The lack ofclear guidelines and incentives for fulltimescientific research and developmentas a profession may explain why most190 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
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BOX 3-8The Contribution of Non-Publ
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Kuwait, and the worst performers su
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emained encumbered by the prevailin
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eveal the breadth of the gap that c
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countries and providing a picture o
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information systems. The available
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
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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
Page 186 and 187: processing and the methods and tool
Page 188 and 189: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEAND FUTURE INI
Page 190 and 191: within bounds that do not hinder bu
Page 192 and 193: preservation and the consolidation
Page 194 and 195: 21As a result of the nature of comp
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: Joint researchprojects among Arabsc
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
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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
Page 245 and 246: Freedom andinstitutionalisationare
Page 247 and 248: Priorities are subjectto a great de
Page 249 and 250: If we admit thatlanguage is avehicl
Page 251 and 252: The major challengelies in changing
Page 253 and 254: Deployment is linkedto the creation
Page 255 and 256: 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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