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Embracing ICT in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities

Discover the key factors influencing ICT adoption in the Arab world, including economic capability, cultural aspects, and technological challenges. Learn about prevalent weaknesses and the necessary actions to bridge the digital divide. Explore the comparison with China and identify crucial needs for the region's ICT advancement.

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Embracing ICT in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities

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  1. The Keys to ICT in the Arab World David Weir (thanks to Dikran Karaoglanian: MIM CERAM 2005)

  2. Strong Factors • Growing economic capability • Common culture • Common Language • Technological enthusiasm • Networked societies

  3. Weak Factors: Social weakness • Low literacy levels • Low social incorporation of women • 65 million adults who are illiterate, of which two thirds are women; • 54 million people lack access to safe water • 29 million lack access to health services • One out of every five people lives in poverty, on less than $2 per day.

  4. Weak Factors: Specific weakness • Governmental communications monopolies • 0.6% of the population use the Internet • the penetration rate of the personal computer is only 1.2%. • Internet culture seen as threatening • Telecommunications continue to be both costly and of limited availability. Prevalence of telephone mainlines is less than one-fifth the level in industrial countries and international phone calls cost twice as much

  5. Needed Actions • learning programmes tailored directly, at secondary level, to ICT knowledge and, at tertiary level, to the ICT market segment. • Vision that facilitates an education model responsive to the development of ICT • Future-oriented plans and predictions • Capacity-building efforts: development of a cadre of middle-managers able to tackle ICT projects successfully in both the private and public sectors.

  6. Language usage • Regional information mechanisms have been created • Expand Arabic language materials: • the languages used are primarily English and French • A number of initiatives are taking place to facilitate the use of ICTs in the Arabic language

  7. Comparison with China • China faced similar challenges in terms of language content and infrastructure in 1998. • A large effort was then made to boost internal connectivity and encourage the creation of content in Chinese. • This initially decreased the demand for international access and increased domestic exchanges. • When the rest of the region joined in, led by Chinese-speaking Hong Kong and Singapore, and several fibre-optic backbones became operative, Asia woke up to a different, more region-centred reality. • The effort is today paying its dividends in a substantial increase of regional trade and information sharing. • Compared to Asia, horizontal exchanges of knowledge are still not frequent among Arab State countries, where best practices and lessons learned are shared less regularly.

  8. Needs • Creation of an Arab-language internal market • Expansion of generic Arab language materials • Liberation of content • Raising of general literacy and participation levels • Liberalisation of telecom services. • Al-Jazeera model • International agency programmes • Sustainability through entrepreneurial/familial networks rather than massive State-directed projects

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