Your Majesty King Abdullah II,

Professor Klaus Schwab

Ladies and gentlemen

I am privileged to be here with you at the Dead Sea Forum for the second time, after my first participation in the 2004 forum. I have been monitoring with a great sense of pride and admiration Jordan's ongoing development.

Three years ago, in this forum I said, and I repeat now, that sustainable development is the biggest challenge for the Arab region. Unless we focus our efforts on sustainable development, any achievement, in any sector, will only be a temporary success.

In recent years, the Arab countries have been taking part in the race for development with various priorities, depending on the conditions in each country, and they are getting closer to making social, economic, educational and administrative reforms. They have achieved positive results in some areas and modest results in others.

The results of these efforts included high economic growth in most of the Arab countries but, while this is an important achievement, it is not enough because many of the prerequisites for sustainable development are unchanged, deteriorating or have improved marginally. This manifested itself in what the region is currently going through from incidences of violence, radicalism and fanaticism. Economic growth has not been followed by the equitable distribution of the revenues of this growth, which has resulted in serious disparities in some societies. This is evidenced by the imbalance of wealth where a minority of the population holds most of the wealth and the majority suffer from very low standards of living.

Ladies and gentlemen

History teaches us that the rise and fall of civilisations and the prosperity of peoples and nations is connected to a process of renewal, development and change that includes economic, political, educational, administrative and intellectual reforms. It is impossible to advance with this process unless we provide the basis for innovation to find creative solutions to the developmental challenges … This has happened to Arab Islamic civilisation and to all other known civilisations since the dawn of history.

In the 15th century, there was great disparity between the West and the Arab region because the Arabs were at the forefront of international trade. At the end of that century, the Europeans built a ship that could cross oceans and Europe began to dominate international trade and the deep seas.

Although the Arab world still took part in international trade until the 18th century, its role diminished rapidly because regional decision makers, scientists and traders did not pay attention to the expansion of European trade that was paralleled with a renaissance in intellect, education, innovations in science, leadership and organisation, and political and judicial reforms. The early stage of this Renaissance began with European culture opening up to the Arab civilisation and studying and applying the works of Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, Al Farabi, Al Zahrawi, Al Khwarizmi and others.

The past offers lessons for the future. The most important thing is to apply these lessons in the modern age because the past is gone with all its good and bad, all its advantages and disadvantages, all its victories and defeats. As for the future, we can shape it with our hands and minds and with our ability to act and react in the age that we live in and by being open to this period’s culture, values and achievements…It is up to us alone to make progress or to sit around waiting, praising our glorious past and blaming others for our failures and our problems.

There is a wide knowledge gap between us and the developed world in the West and in Asia. Our only choice is to bridge this gap as quickly as possible, because our age is defined by knowledge and it determines how a country is positioned in terms of weakness and strength, backwardness and advancement, efficiency and stagnation, wealth and poverty, and whether it is able to seize opportunities.

We must disprove those who claim that we don’t miss an opportunity to lose opportunities. – we must create opportunities, hold onto them and transform them into great achievements.

As for knowledge, the challenge that our region faces is not just the lack of
knowledge but a more dangerous failure to provide an environment conducive to knowledge and to prepare knowledgeable human capital. The illiteracy that is still rampant in the region’s communities limits the region’s growth and advancement. It is sad that in this region illiteracy is still high ranging between 20 % and 40% Most alarmingly, illiteracy is 18 % in the under 15 age group and is 43% among females.

The previous indicators reflect reality quantitatively, and if we examine the qualitative aspects the view is even more pessimistic; the levels of intellectual and scientific output are disappointing – whether original or translated - they are among the lowest in the world. According to Human Development reports, literary and intellectual books published in the Arab world represent only 0.08% of the world’s output, less than those published in Turkey. For every 100,000 books published in North America and 42,000 published in South America, we in the Arab world publish only 6,500 books.

According to the same reports, from the age of Al Ma’moon and Bait Al Hikma until 2002, the Arab world translated 100,000 books, the same number translated each year in Spain! As for spending on scientific research, the Arab world spends only 0.02% of its GDP while the developed countries spend between 2.5% and 5%. In the Arab world, for every 10,000 people in the workforce we have 3.3 academic scholars, while the developed world has 110 for every 10,000.

In addition, the region’s unemployment rate is 14%. Our region needs 15 million jobs, and in the next twenty years the Arab world will need 74 million to 80 million new jobs. We need to improve the business environment in order to create job opportunities: on average, Arab countries ranked 107 out of 170 in terms of the amount of red tape involved in setting up a business.

This situation cannot be allowed to continue…

It is not enough to look over the development indicators each year and to exclaim in surprise at the region’s situation and the fact that it ranks amongst the lowest positions at the international level.

It is the ultimate form of negligence to know why we lag behind, and the dangers of doing so, and not to act.

We have to arm ourselves with courage and work quickly and seriously, to tackle the reasons that put our region behind the rest of world and our era.

I call upon governments, businessmen, civil society, authors, professors and the wealthy, to shoulder their responsibilities.

I would like also to place a special emphasis on the role of the religious scholars who were praised by Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) for their important role in building the nation by spreading knowledge. They have a great responsibility towards educating our youth about the true spirit of our religion; about its teachings on tolerance and acceptance of others and the value of dialogue for creating an understanding between nations.

Your Majesty The King, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me the greatest pleasure to announce a personal initiative aimed at contributing to the development of a knowledge based society in our region, by supporting and empowering young minds and focusing on research, education and investment in the infrastructure for knowledge, and work towards equal opportunity of advancement and dignified lives for the people of the region.

To achieve these objectives, I have decided to establish the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. The Foundation will focus on human development… and I have pledged an endowment of a USD10 billion to finance its projects.

The Foundation will develop and manage programmes to build a strong knowledge base that is commensurate with international standards. Priorities include launching a fund for research and translation, and delivering programmes for leadership development in the public and private sectors and civil society. Starting next year, we will provide scholarships to the best universities and institutes.

The Foundation will offer scholarships to writers and will establish research centres in the region’s universities. The Foundation’s programmes are aimed at restoring the standing of scholars and intellectuals by supporting publishing and providing awards and media coverage.

It will encourage efforts to find solutions for economic and social development by encouraging creativity and innovation, creating small and medium-sized enterprises and providing a platform for decision-makers from all sectors to exchange dialogue and expertise, to accelerate achieving good governance and encourage partnerships between the private and the public sectors and facilitate creation of jobs.

Nations which are determined to succeed do not give up or try to avoid facing challenges.

We, as a nation, have always been steadfast in our determination to succeed – we didn’t give up in the past and we won’t give up in the future.

Arabs deserve economic and social success and we are capable of achieving this.

I understand the frustration at the political and economic failures in our region. I understand our region is under a great deal of pressure, but this pressure should serve as the motivational force to put in extra efforts, to try hard, to strive, to create and to make us more determined to develop and manage our priorities successfully… We should rid ourselves of any frustration or despair and arm ourselves with optimism and hope …

Our region offers an abundance of opportunities and potential, not just problems and defeat, and our history is rich in motivational examples, giving, creativity and innovation. We have the vision and the will and significant achievements to our credit, which provide us the prerequisites for moving forward and we have a population half of which is under the age of 20.

It is up to us to provide young people with happiness and hope and to motivate them to explore the unknown, to mould them into assets. It is our duty to make them great assets to themselves, their nation and to the world. The first priority must be to help people to help themselves, and to encourage them to be productive and innovative.

There is no room any more for illusions, day dreams and rhetorical speeches and slogans in our region. Arabs may admire glamorous speeches, but they are more interested in tangible development results on the ground. Arabs are interested to touch and feel the impact of this development on their families, societies and countries.

It is not acceptable any more that the region be treated as a testing field for uncalculated adventures. Attempts to import ready-made solutions not indigenous to this part of the world and enforce them are not the correct option for our region. Such actions have only resulted in chaos, confusion and weakness and served as barriers to reform. They hindered social, political and economic growth and led to huge failure.

We have to build our own model that reflects Arab culture and lives up to international standards. We have to engage in dialogue and believe in partnership in deciding the future of the world.

In our journey to the future, we have no obstacles. We are optimistic we will be able to achieve our ambitious targets on our way to become an economically and socially flourishing region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Your brothers and sisters in the UAE are pursuing their quest of meeting the highest international standards in education, health care, social welfare, government performance, partnership with private sector and innovation.

As you have always known it, the UAE is putting all its achievements and expertise at the disposal of all sister countries across the region. Showcasing its resolution on development and progress, the UAE will not rest until sustainable development is achieved throughout the region … this is the core purpose of our new Foundation… to contribute to progress.

Thank you.