The Challenge of the ICTs for the Arab World. The Spread of Information and Communication Technologies in Arab Countries

The rise of the knowledge economy has marked the start of a race for technological innovation that is apparently widening the “digital divide” between North and South: whereas most people living in the richest countries now have access to the information and communication technologies (ICTs), this is far from true in poorer regions, especially in the Arab world. Kamel Touati presents here a survey of the spread of ICTs in the Arab world and explains that the region suffers from a “double digital divide”. The first separates the kingdoms of the Gulf, which are richer and more advanced with regard to ICTs, from the rest of the Arab world, where access to these technologies remains a challenge. There is then a second divide, between the Arab nations and the rest of the world, associated with the lack of funding for R&D, the absence of co-ordination among nations and the often prohibitive costs of ICTs. Consequently Arab countries have differing levels of access to the Internet and the Arabic language is little used on the Web. This situation is damaging both for the populations of these countries and for their cultural influence abroad.