Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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Table 4The employment challenge: projected numbers of new jobs required.CountrygroupLaborforce in 2005(millions)Unemploymentrate 2005(%)Number ofjobs 2005(millions)Number of newjobs by 2010(millions)Number of newjobs by 2015(millions)Number of newjobs by 2020(millions)Mixed economy(six states)Mixed oil economy(two states)Oil economy(six states)Primary export economy(four states)Total (eighteenArab states)48.3 11.82 42.59 6.55 14.16 21.7815.5 15.61 13.08 2.26 4.92 7.5613.7 4.53 13.08 3.37 7.73 12.0822.8 18.68 18.54 2.85 6.17 9.49100.3 12.97 87.29 15.03 32.98 50.91Source: League of Arab States and UNDP, 2008numbers of Arab youth who each day jointhe ranks of the unemployed. It is obviousthat the picture has become gloomier inview of the current world financial crisisand its repercussions for the region.GOVERNANCE AND THEWEAKNESS OF INSTITUTIONALPERFORMANCE 5The Arab states have remained weak andhidebound over the last two decades,without any notable change in termsof institutional performance. Availableindicators make clear that the Arab states’weak performance in 1996 in terms ofgovernance 6 indicators did not changegreatly in the ten years to 2006 (League ofArab States and UNDP, 2008). The effectof this weak performance on many aspectsof development and the componentsof the knowledge society, in particularfreedoms, is no secret.One of the most recent reports hasconcluded that the major challengesfacing the region can be summarised asinstitutional reform, good governance,the provision of job opportunities–particularly for youth–, the ring-fencingof funds for development that serves thepoor, reform of the education system, anddiversification of the economic systems soas not to be dependent on one commodity(in particular oil based economies), inaddition to the provision of food security(League of Arab States and UNDP, 2008).VARIABLES EXERTINGPRESSURE ON THE ARABKNOWLEDGE SCENEWAR, OCCUPATION, INTERNALCONFLICT, AND THEDISRUPTION OF KNOWLEDGEOccupation, wars, and internal conflictshave an overwhelmingly disruptiveinfluence on the knowledge society.Not only do they affect its mainstays,in the form of education, technology,and innovation, they also, through theeconomic destruction, disruption todevelopment, suppression of freedoms,and restrictions on movement, strike atthe heart of the enabling environmentsneeded for the establishment of theknowledge society. Furthermore, the lackof security means that people are unableto obtain their basic needs, to say nothingof realising their hopes of setting in placeThe employmentpicture has becomegloomier in view ofthe current worldfinancial crisisOccupation,wars, and internalconflicts have anoverwhelminglydisruptiveinfluence on theknowledge societyPREAMBLE13
In the period2003-2007, morethan 830 Iraqiacademics werekilled, most of themdoctors, engineers,and physicistsPalestinians continueto suffer thenegative effects ofthe occupation onall the operativeaxes of theknowledge societythe pillars of the society to which theyaspire.With regard to Iraq, it cannot be claimedthat education prior to the US interventionin 2003 was devoid of the problems knownto other Arab countries. However, manystudies and indicators confirm that thestandard of education has declined after2003, and that educational problems havebeen exacerbated and have accumulated asa result of the conflicts that broke out.For example, a report of the UN Officefor the Coordination of HumanitarianAffairs (OCHA) stated that net enrolmentrates in basic education had reached 46 percent in the 2006-7 school year comparedto 86 per cent in the previous year, andthat only 28 per cent of graduation-agestudents had been able to attend their endof year final exams, which only 40 per centof them passed (UN OCHA, 2008).A UNESCO report published inApril 2007 and entitled Education underAttack, disclosed that political and militaryviolence that targets educational systems iscausing growing numbers of children tobe deprived of the right to education. Thereport depicted Iraq’s educational systemas “the education system most impactedby the severity of attacks, whose scope andnumbers of casualties have reached a levelso extreme as to threaten the collapse of theschool and university systems” (UNESCO,2007b, in Arabic). The report made clearthat over a period of not more than tenmonths between February and November2006, 280 Iraqi teachers were killed, andthat only 30 per cent of Iraq’s 3.5 millionpupils attended classes in 2007, comparedto 75 per cent in the previous school year.The UNESCO report mentioned thatenrolment at Baghdad universities declinedby 40 per cent while more than 3,000academics fled the country. A reportpresented in June 2007 to the BritishCross-party Commission on Iraq 7 statedthat in the period 2003-2007, more than830 Iraqi academics were killed, most ofthem doctors, engineers, and physicists;more than 70 per cent of the victims wereuniversity professors, PhD holders, or theequivalent.Some sources point to a recentimprovement in the state of educationand knowledge on the heels of a relativeimprovement in the political and securitysituation. This gives hope for betteropportunities to deal in the most effectiveway with the existing and cumulativeknowledge challenges if the building ofknowledge society is to be renewed in Iraqand if Iraqi energies are to be releasedanew in support of development and abetter future.Palestinians continue to suffer thenegative effects of the occupation onall the operative axes of the knowledgesociety. The Israeli occupation andrepeated incursions into the Palestinianterritories have had enormous effects onthe educational process, considered thecorner stone of any knowledge society.Many pupils, teachers, and support staffhave been killed, over and above thecontinual danger of detention and abuse atthe occupation’s barriers and checkpoints.During 2008, and without taking accountof the losses suffered during the attack onGaza that began at the end of the year,statistics from the Palestinian Ministryof Education show that forty Palestinianstudents were killed and eighty othersreceived a range of wounds. Also, 260students, teachers, and support staff weredetained. To this should be added theIsraeli incursions that led to the ongoingclosure of 100 schools and the loss of150 school days (Palestinian Ministry ofEducation and Higher Education, 2009a,in Arabic). UNICEF reported that “nearlyhalf of all students have seen their schoolbesieged by troops, and more than 10 percent have witnessed the killing of a teacherin school” (UNICEF, 2009).Nor have the universities been sparedattack and the infliction of varied damage.Israeli forces raided the University ofBethlehem and Al-Najah University inNablus in 2002, and Hebron University in2003, besieging them and causing lessonsto be suspended. The Al-Quds OpenUniversity in Ramallah, the Palestine14 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009
Page 1 and 2: United Nations Development Programm
Page 3 and 4: This Report has been produced throu
Page 5 and 6: This year’s report may perhapsbes
Page 7 and 8: ICT in the Arab countries and reinf
Page 9 and 10: CONTENTSPREAMBLEIntroductionPrelimi
Page 11 and 12: Quantitative indicatorsTertiary edu
Page 13 and 14: LIST OF BOXESBox 1 The Effect of th
Page 15 and 16: Figure 5-7 Published scientific art
Page 17 and 18: Table 21 Time devoted to secondary
Page 19 and 20: The knowledgefield and revolutionto
Page 21 and 22: The literature onhuman rights place
Page 23 and 24: Arabic istechnologicallypoor in com
Page 25 and 26: Intercommunicationwith the self mea
Page 27 and 28: Table 2CountryGroupGroup 1: Oilecon
Page 29: Figure 2504540353025201510508070605
Page 34 and 35: eversion, in many cases, is not ass
Page 36 and 37: Thus the Arab region in general, an
Page 38 and 39: knowledge over recent years. This w
Page 40 and 41: However, this progress remains limi
Page 42: CHAPTER ONETHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWOR
Page 45 and 46: The successfuldeployment ofthe know
Page 47 and 48: The knowledgerevolution atthe end o
Page 49 and 50: Technology, theeconomy, andsociety,
Page 51 and 52: No one pursuesknowledge forits own
Page 53 and 54: The Report adoptsa concept ofknowle
Page 55 and 56: The goal of thiscritical review isn
Page 57 and 58: In our bidfor economicand humandeve
Page 59 and 60: The political reformproject remains
Page 61 and 62: Globalisation isdependent oninforma
Page 63 and 64: The battle overknowledge in oursoci
Page 65 and 66: The most obviousexample of the gapb
Page 67 and 68: BOX 1-9The Virtual as an Interrogat
Page 69 and 70: The upsurge intechnologicalprowess
Page 71 and 72: Collective humaneffort must bedirec
Page 73 and 74: End Notes1Epistemic saturation refe
Page 76 and 77: CHAPTER TWOARAB KNOWLEDGE PERFORMAN
Page 78 and 79: current economic crisis in the autu
Page 80 and 81:
FIGURE 2-3Perceptions of corruption
Page 82 and 83:
technology infrastructure, blogs ar
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nations continue to occupy their pr
Page 86 and 87:
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
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89Finland, for example, whose stude
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CHAPTER FOURINFORMATION AND COMMUNI
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FIGURE 4-1ICT index values for Arab
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countries and the Arab countries. T
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Arab countries-Egypt, Algeria, Leba
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of Arabic content and its low rate
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exchange of future technology servi
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of national partnerships aimed at s
Page 174 and 175:
TABLE 4-2Readiness of Arab countrie
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as the implementation of programmes
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BOX 4-2Evaluating the Performance o
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of common principles that guarantee
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data from various sources and then
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FIGURE 4-11Paper consumption and in
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processing and the methods and tool
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TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEAND FUTURE INI
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within bounds that do not hinder bu
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preservation and the consolidation
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21As a result of the nature of comp
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CHAPTER FIVEARAB PERFORMANCE IN RES
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FIGURE 5-1Innovation system index f
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The extremely lowamounts spentby Ar
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It has become clearthat the wager o
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Joint researchprojects among Arabsc
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Theoretically, themore researcherst
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Average expenditureon scientific re
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BOX 5-6Jordan’s “A Professor in
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BOX 5-8For the last three decades,
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FIGURE 5-7Published scientific arti
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A review of theperiod from 2002to 2
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Social scienceresearch holds aspeci
Page 221 and 222:
Most Arabic-languageperiodicals in
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Arab societies arefilled with examp
Page 225 and 226:
Human capitalis among Arabcountries
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TABLE 5-12Trade in technological pr
Page 229 and 230:
It is ironic thatalthough the Arabw
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End Notes1UNESCO Institute for Stat
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CHAPTER SIXBUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE S
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The most conspicuousfeature of thek
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A review of nationalplans in the Ar
Page 241 and 242:
The positiveachievements inthe Arab
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One of the keyfoundations of thevis
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Freedom andinstitutionalisationare
Page 247 and 248:
Priorities are subjectto a great de
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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
Page 258 and 259:
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
Page 282 and 283:
Freedom House and Heritage Institut
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Endnotes* This annex was prepared b
Page 288 and 289:
STATISTICAL ANNEXGENERAL INDICATORS
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Table 3: Economic IndicatorsCountry
Page 292 and 293:
KNOWLEDGE PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENTST
Page 294 and 295:
Table 7: Press Freedom Index in the
Page 296 and 297:
EDUCATIONTable 9: Adult literacy ra
Page 298 and 299:
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
Page 326 and 327:
competition between the internet se
Page 328 and 329:
Table c-4: Ranking of a group of Ar
Page 332:
United Nations Development Programm
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Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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