enablIng enVIronmentS For preparIng FUtUre generatIonS

There is almost a consensus among Arab elites on adopting a comprehensive concept of the knowledge society and placing it within the overall framework of sustainable human development as a means and an end. The Second Arab Human Development Report in 2003 defined ‘the knowledge society’ as one mainly based on the efficient dissemination, production and utilisation of knowledge in all areas of societal activity: Economy and civil society, politics and private life, up to the steady promotion of the human condition, i.e., establishing human development. The Arab Knowledge Report 2009, advanced the search, and found its vision on the above efforts, adopting an ‘integrated concept of knowledge’ and ‘knowledge society’. Based on the accumulation of knowledge developed in the first report, the Arab Knowledge Report, 2010/2011, continues with the previous crystallised Arab vision of ‘the knowledge society’ with an integrated tendency viewing knowledge as an integrated whole that is not limited to science and technology, but represents the sum of all human creations in science, technology, humanities, literature, art and the wider human experience. Through this integrated perspective, we can understand the knowledge society in all its broad connotations; it is a knowledge-intensive society whose members possess cognitive, behavioural and value characteristics interacting in socially, politically and culturally supportive environments which stimulate these characteristics and enhance them in a dialectical relationship, releasing the energies of creativity and innovation among society’s members in the use of available means and possession of the gains of development. This broad vision encompassing the connotations of the knowledge society, and seeking to expand choices and opportunities for the progress of the Arab individual and the achievement of freedom and goals, enables us to view ‘the preparation of the young for the knowledge society’ as a set of continuous procedural operations involving two interacting factors: First, building and preparing the future Arab generations and equipping them with the skills and values required for the knowledge society in an enlightened cultural context; and second, building the necessary enabling environments in economics, sociology, politics and culture to enable the future Arab generations and Arabs in general, and stimulate them towards creativity, invention and production of knowledge. Hence, the triad of skills, values and enabling, which the report relied on, were adopted. Based on this integrated vision of ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowledge society,’ and after having dealt with the preparation of the young in Chapter 2 (which dealt with the issue of education) and Chapter 3 (which dealt with the issue of upbringing in the family, media and cultural environment), this Chapter focuses on the identification of Arab enabling environments that prepare and empower the future generations to access the knowledge society. For as much as we succeed in building the institutions for the preparation and upbringing (e.g. enablIng enVIronmentS For preparIng FUtUre generatIonS In the knowledge SocIety CHAPTER FOUR