The Riyadh-based Arab Thought Foundation has produced a report on the state Arab cultural development. It’s pretty sad. Saudi Gazette provides a summary of the report’s findings, from education and literacy to book publishing and mass media. The report notes that vast international programs to address the lack of development have their place, but the major efforts should be undertaken at the national level. I’ll look for a link to the full report, but the Foundation’s website is not being cooperative in English today.

Arab culture: Facts and figures
Abdullah Al-Asmary

LAST week, a landmark report provided a grim picture of the cultural situation across the Arab world. Arab Thought Foundation, a non-governmental and non-profit Arab organization chaired by Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, released its first report on cultural development in the Arab world.

Thoroughly surveyed and keenly articulated, the report, filed by 40 researchers and covering all 22 Arab countries, concludes that there are numerous challenges facing Arab culture in a rapidly changing world.

The survey, to be conducted each year, has shed light on four important development indicators: education, book publishing, artistic and literary creativity, information technology and a brief survey of the Arab countries’ contributions in these fields during one year. On education, the report found that the number of students attending schools and universities has greatly increased compared with what it had been years ago in the Arab world. Almost 84 percent of children go to school at age six, a discouraging figure compared with that in other developing countries.
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