The UNDP Arab Knowledge Report 2009 – Review and Analysis

Introduction

"When all have access to the lights of Knowledge, the time of democracy will have come." (Victor Hugo, circa 1840)

"An ignorant people is more tractable than an educated one." (Egyptian ruler Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, circa 1860)

- UNDP Report, p.98

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Regional Bureau of Arab States recently published the 2009 Arab Knowledge Report,[1] 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…" (p. 4),[2] is a comprehensive review of the state of knowledge in the Arab world as a foundation for the creation of a "knowledge society"[3] in this critical region, most of which "still suffers from knowledge and digital illiteracy" (p. 2).The report adopts UNESCO's 2005 definition of the term "knowledge societies" to denote the change taking place in a world where technology "forms the cornerstone" and is anchored into the new economy and communications networks (p. 35). The report states that knowledge in the Arab world is hampered by the Arabic language's "linguistic isolation" in the area of information technology, which "reveals the powerlessness of linguistic media to develop appropriate tools for work and production" (p. 46). The report also notes that knowledge may be hampered by religious extremism and intolerance, aggravated by the availability of satellite channels which specialize in disseminating radical religious discourse (p. 77).

The State of Human Development in Arab Countries^[4]

As a preface to its review of the state of knowledge, the report discusses human development in the Arab countries. The data show that the Arab countries have made "slight progress" in human development since the beginning of the current decade (p. 9). There has been more noticeable progress in per capita GDP, which rose from $5,038 in 2001 to about $8,000 in 2008 in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). [5] In terms of political culture, the report asserts that Arab societies still depend on a "paternalist social contract" that provides social welfare to the people in return for their political allegiance to the rulers (p. 10).

Reform efforts launched in the 1980s have either failed or produced little improvement. As a result, poverty is increasing. Wealth is poorly distributed and poverty incidence – meaning the number of people who live below the poverty line – has reached 18.4 percent, while the number of poor averaged 34.7 million in the years 2000-2006 (p. 11).

The report refers to "very low sovereignty in terms of food supplies," which means that the Arab countries are among the countries of the world most dependent on food imports. While aridity is the prime cause of food dependency, the report also mentions poor management of inputs that enhance agricultural productivity. Low levels of food security affect the poor most of all. While the wealthy have access to local fish, meat, and vegetables, the poor depend on imported grain, oils, and sugar whose prices are affected by the global market (p. 12).

Young Population and High Unemployment Rates

The Arab countries face the challenge of having a young population. The 10-24 age group accounts for two-thirds of the population, and is expected to number between 125 and 150 million by 2025. Many of these young people are unemployed, and data show that unemployment rates have risen: in the 1980s, the weighted average unemployment rate was 10.6 percent, in the 1990s it rose to 14.5, with the highest level being recorded in Algeria (25.3%) and the lowest in Syria (8.1%).

The unemployment rate for young people is far higher than the average unemployment rate for the entire population. In 2005, youth unemployment averaged between 46 percent in Algeria and 6.3 percent in the United Arab Emirates (p. 12). Job creation is not keeping pace with the new entrants to the labor market, so that many of these young people may never be able to earn a living.

The report also warns against extremism, although it distinguishes between "extreme loyalty" (ta'asub), defined as "excessive zeal for a particular idea or affiliation," and "extremism" (tataruf), which "negates the Other, halts the process of dialogue, and prevents mutual understanding." Moreover, tataruf threatens or bans freedom without which the knowledge society is not likely to prosper (p. 12).

Knowledge and Freedom

It is a fundamental premise that freedom stimulates knowledge. Knowledge and freedom, the report asserts, are "two sides of the same coin." Quoting economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, it states that freedom contributes "to a broadening of choices and individual possibilities in the various spheres of life." The obverse is equally true and significant: political oppression stifles freedom and limits human choices and consequently human development. The report notes that in the Arab countries, there has been a general trend of freedom levels going from bad to worse instead of "from good to better" (p. 60).

Talk about political reform is abundant, but not necessarily real, as it often appears to be "suspended in the air, unable to come to ground in the real world," due to repression and multiple mechanisms of censorship (p. 61). The report measures these constraints using four indexes: (a) the Press Freedom Index, the Democracy Index; (c) the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index; and (d) Economic Freedom Index:

(a) Press Freedom Index

The Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters without Borders, ranks all the Arab states as countries that restrict the freedom of the press, though to differing degrees. Not a single country receives a "good" rating. Two are rated as "satisfactory," six have "noticeable problems," seven are characterized as presenting a "difficult situation," and seven as presenting a "very serious situation." Two Arab countries are ranked at the very bottom of the list of the 173 countries studied (pp. 62-3).[6]

The report notes that the Arab media operate under government control, exercised through many channels of official oversight anchored in multiple laws (pp. 65-66). Moreover, free and creative production encounters administrative impediments embedded into the requirement for licenses which may be withdrawn at any time. Restrictions also apply to the dissemination of printed materials. Censorship is widespread in the pre-publication stage, and may also take the form of removing books from the shelves, "sometimes [even] a number of years after their publication." Given these impediments to the creation and diffusion of information, the report notes that "it is difficult to foresee an upsurge in Arab knowledge" (p. 66). It also notes that "Arab civil society is absent from [the] global scene," unlike the NGOs and consumer groups in other developing countries, which help to foster knowledge and development (p. 78).

The report underscores the discrepancy between official promises to guarantee public freedoms and the actual policies on the ground, noting that there is a widening gap between word and deed (p. 64). Experience shows that this degree of discrepancy often leads to political cynicism, creating an unbridgeable chasm between the rulers and the ruled.

The report highlights the taboos on writing about religion, politics and sex. These taboos, it says, have escalated with the rising tide of religious dogma that has undermined "the true value of religions as represented by their ethical values, tolerant teachings and moderate practices" (p.76). With the spread of poverty, social marginalization and political frustration, there has been an increase of fatwas (religious rulings) that accuse others of heresy or apostasy (p.77).

(b) The Democracy Index

The Democracy Index, published by the Economic Investigations Unit of the London weekly The Economist, incorporates 60 indicators tracking performance in five areas: the electoral process and plurality, civil liberties, government performance, political participation and political culture. Most Arab countries, with the exception of Iraq, Lebanon, and the occupied Palestinian territories, were ranked low compared with other emerging countries such as Malaysia, India, Brazil, and South Africa (p. 63).

(c) The Transparency International Corruption Index

Transparency International, based in Berlin, publishes the Corruption Perception Index, which measures the extent of corruption in 180 countries. In its 2009 report, 17 of the 22 Arab countries scored less than 5 (on a scale of 0 to 10), with Somalia ranked at the very bottom of the scale. The report finds "a direct correlation between the decline in the levels of freedom and democracy, the spread of corruption, and the decline of government performance" (p. 63). This is not surprising, because in the absence of democracy – which implies the accountability of government to the elected representatives of the people – corruption spreads unchecked. It is interesting to note that Iraq appears very low on the list: it is fourth from the bottom (with only Somalia, Afghanistan and Myanmar appearing below it). Iraq is therefore somewhat of an anomaly, because it suffers from high levels of corruption despite having one of the most competitive political systems in the Arab world.

(d) Economic Freedom Index

To measure the level of economic freedom, the report uses the Economic Freedom Index, issued by the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC. The index examines ten freedoms, each assigned equal weight and evaluated on a scale of 1-100 (100 representing the maximal level of freedom). The index was issued in 2009 but includes data through the second half of 2007.

Of the seventeen Arab countries included in this index, nine were designated "largely unfree" and six were designated "moderately free." Not one was ranked among the "free" countries (p. 68).

The issue of economic freedom is crucial to the domain of knowledge. An economically free society is one where initiative is rewarded, competitiveness is encouraged, fair trade is maintained and accountability is observed. An economic system that is unfree or only partly free is, at best, a system in which the public sector – where entrepreneurship and market forces are missing – forms a large part of the national economy. At worst, it is a system in which the authorities require various licenses, used as a source of "rent" (i.e., bribes and illicit payments to officials).

One noteworthy superiority of the Arab countries is their high degree of fiscal freedom, which is attributable to a low rate of taxation, or in the case of some Gulf countries, a complete absence of taxation (p. 69). Indeed, the index shows that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states "realized the highest average for economic freedoms among Arab countries," thanks to economic openness and an environment friendly to direct foreign investment (p. 70).

Summarizing its findings thus far, the report concludes that "the state of knowledge-enabling environments as viewed from the angle of freedoms in the Arab world is not one to stimulate the advancement of knowledge performance" (p. 82), and that, as a result, the quality of the knowledge society continues to be poor compared to many other parts of the world.

Education and the Generation of Knowledge Capital

This section of the report opens with the positive observation 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 (p. 98).

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 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 (p. 99). Moreover, the report raises doubts about the reliability of the quantitative indicators, suggesting that school enrolments figures might be distorted and inflated because of "such unhealthy phenomena as high repetition rates and the packing of classrooms with students beyond the reasonable limit for the designated age group of a class" (p. 101). The rate of exaggeration, it says, is between 10 and 21 percent (pp.101-2).

Another issue is the quality of knowledge acquired in schools. Studies conducted in 2007 among eighth graders found that pupils in Arab countries scored very poorly in mathematics (the Arab countries were ranked in places 30-51 among 51 participating countries). Furthermore, studies that examined the science and math curricula showed that they are "entirely lacking in activities aimed at developing learners' abilities to collect, organize, sift and analyze information" (p. 106).

As for tertiary level education, student enrolment in pure, life, and applied sciences and in 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 (p. 115). 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 (p. 131).

The Digital Gap

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" (p. 143). 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 (pp. 146-9).

Limited Research Capacity and Funding

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" (p. 187). 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) (p. 192). Given the shortcomings of the education system, it is not surprising that innovations lag behind "other pillars of knowledge" (p. 181).

Flight of Human Capital

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 (p. 208). 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 (p. 209). 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.

Proposed Action for the Creation of a Knowledge Society

The report offers a "vision" for the creation of a knowledge society in the Arab countries. This vision requires development along three major axes: the creation of an enabling environment, the transfer and indigenization of knowledge, and the deployment of knowledge at the service of sustainable human development (pp. 227-228). 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 (p. 229).

Conclusion

Like many reports of this genre issued in recent years by international organizations, especially by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this report boldly focuses on issues that are often swept under the carpet by Arab researchers investigating their own countries. The advantage of reports of this kind is that they provide a platform for Arab researchers to highlight the social, political and economic problems that impede the creation of knowledge societies in the Arab world. The main message of this report is that unless education systems improve and freedom is advanced, the Arab world will continue to lag behind and miss out on the communications and technological revolution that is sweeping through the world.

*Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is Senior Analyst at MEMRI.

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