The Arab Knowledge Report
The Arab Knowledge Report 2009:
Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge
The Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge is the fruit of a collaborative effort of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and the United Nations Development Programme/ Regional Bureau for Arab States. It is the first of a projected series of reports that address the state of knowledge in the Arab Region. The ultimate aim is to analyse and identify opportunities and risks inherent in the acquisition, production, creation, and deployment of “knowledge”; a primary avenue for renaissance and human development.
Emphasising the triadic relationship among development, freedom, and knowledge, the Report views the upgrading of Arab knowledge performance as a gateway to reform the Arab development situation. In addition to calling for optimal deployment of the Arab knowledge repertoire, the report also stresses the importance of productive intercommunication with the accumulated global knowledge. Out of a belief in the right to knowledge and a conviction that its dissemination is a societal responsibility, the Report puts forward a general vision of future strategies and initiatives, including suggested mechanisms and foundations for action aimed at bridging the knowledge gap in the Arab region.
The Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge discusses factors that promote and/or impede knowledge in the Arab region in addition to identifying the level of development it has achieved in the knowledge related fields of education, ICT, and research and innovation.
The concept of “knowledge” sanctioned in the Report embraces all forms of a society’s epistemological, scientific and cultural assets. Hence, knowledge becomes a major organising principal of holistic human development that aims to expand opportunities available to the individual Arab to enjoy freedom and an honourable life. Knowledge, in terms of its acquisition, production, indigenisation, and deployment, thus becomes a tool and a goal whose influence ought to reach all levels of society equally and involve all knowledge fields, including the scientific, artistic, cultural, and accumulative societal heritage.
From this perspective, the Report discusses the broad features and key components of the knowledge society and the knowledge economy. It reviews and analyses recent developments in the state of knowledge in the Arab region identifying the gap that divides it from both the advanced world and certain developing countries that have made progress in the production and deployment of knowledge for development. In addition to reviewing achieved progress and identifying shortcomings in the main knowledge fields of education, ICT and scientific research and innovation in the Arab region, the Report also discusses the general enabling environments for knowledge―with a focus on freedoms as a basic requirement.
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