Arab Human development report 2003: building Knowledge society
Regional, Politics, 10/20/2003

Arab states need to close a "growing knowledge gap" by investing heavily in education and promoting open intellectual inquiry, say the authors of the second Arab Human Development Report, published by the United National Development program on October 20.

The Arab states should also encourage greater interaction with other nations, cultures and regions of the world, the authors urge. "Openness, interaction, assimilation, absorption, revision, criticism and examination cannot but prompt creative knowledge production in Arab societies," the report states.

The report written by a group of distinguished Arab scholars and opinion leaders, is at once descriptive and perspective, with bold recommendations for change and analysis of the current state of education, scientific research, the media, the publishing industry, culture encompassing religion, intellectual heritage and the Arabic language, and other building blocks of a "knowledge society" in the Arab states.

Drafted during a period of intensifying conflict and political tension in the region, the report also noted the direct and indirect impact on Arab human development, of recent international and regional events including the occupation of Iraq; Israel's reoccupation of most Palestinian cities and towns, and restrictions on civil societies imposed under the rubric of counter- terrorism in the west and the Arab world alike.

The Arab Human Development report 2003 (AHDR2003 ) is the second of a planned four-part series which will also cover the issues of freedoms and political institutions, and gender imbalance and the empowerment of women in the 22 Arab states. The first Report (AHDR 2002 ), issued a year ago, outlined the most important development challenges facing the Arab states at the beginning of the third Millennium. The Egyptian renowned journalist Muhammad Hassanain Haikal said AHDR 2002 signaled the region's "last chance to join the trip to the future."

Time Magazine hailed it as "the most important publication of 2002. " More than a million visitors of UNDP's Web site download the entire 168 page of text of AHDR 2002, written by a distinguished team of scholars from throughout the Arab states, under the leadership of Nader Fergany, Director of the Mishkat center for research and Training in Cairo and Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, United Nations Assistant secretary general and Regional director of UNDP's regional Bureau for Arab states, who is a former deputy prime minister of Jordan.

AHDR delves deeper into one of the key issues raised by last year's Report: the construction of a viable "Knowledge society" in the Arab states. The report was prepared via a participatory process involving nearly 40 authors and 30 advisers and peer reviewers. Contributors to the report included prominent Arab development thinkers and practitioners -- men and women from academia, intelligentsia, civil society, the media and the private and public sector.

The Report examines the status of Arab knowledge today in terms of demand, production and dissemination, and concludes that "all three are ineffectual, notwithstanding the abundance of Arab human capital," Khalaf writes in her forward. It contrasts this state with the origins and outcomes of the region's rich, enquiring and pluralistic cultural and intellectual heritage, confirming that the latter provide robust foundations on which to build a knowledge society.

As Khalaf stresses, the AHDR 2003 is intended to provoke debate and catalyze change inside the Arab states. The goal is to activate a dialogue among Arabs on ways to change the course of Arab history and afford the Arab citizens "the decent lives to which they aspire and to wish they are entitled," she says.

"Written into every line is the unwavering conviction that reform efforts, which genuinely serve the region's interests must be initiated and launched from within." Yet the construction of a viable "knowledge society" requires effective economic, social and political institutions, Khalaf emphasizing "The missing links are.. smothered by ideologies, societal structures and values that inhabit critical thinking, cut Arabs off from their knowledge rich heritage and block the free flow of ideas and learning."

The report proposes a strategic vision that could support a creative renaissance buttressed by the "five pillars" of an Arab Knowledge society guaranteeing the key freedoms of opinion, and assembly through good governance bounded by the law." A climate of freedom is an essential prerequisite of the knowledge society," affirms the report and argues that "It is also imperative to end an era of administrative control and the grip of security agencies over the production and dissemination of knowledge and the various forms of creative activity that are the foundations for the knowledge society in Arab states."

The full dissemination of high quality education. The Arab states need to radically improve the quality of all levels of education. Education should become universal and extended to 10 years. Special attention should be paid to early childhood learning and to creating a system for life long learning.

In higher education, improving quality requires subjecting all programs to independent and periodic evaluation. To achieve this, the report calls for the establishment of an independent Arab organization for the accreditation of all higher education programs.

Indigenizing science, understanding and joining the information revolution. A starting point for this is to overcome the illusion that importing technology as embodied in products, machinery and services, is equivalent to acquiring knowledge. Basic research should be encouraged and supported by appropriate funding and institutions. Arab governments should also establish networks linking public, private and international sectors, and focus technological research on regional demands.

Shifting rapidly towards knowledge based and value added production. This calls for a decisive move towards developing renewable resources through knowledge and technological capabilities and towards diversifying economic structures and markets, and developing an authentic, broadminded and enlightened Arab knowledge model. This would include delivering pure religion from political exploitation, and respecting independent scholarship; advancing the Arabic language by undertaking serious and linguistic reform; reclaiming the intellectual strengths of Arab cultural heritage, promoting cultural diversity in the region, and opening up to other cultures abroad.

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