the first AHDR naturally gave rise to more questions than it could answer. Responding to demand for ongoing analysis, UNDP and partners in the region decided to sponsor three additional reports, each one exploring to greater depth, in turn, the three deficits identified by the first AHDR. Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society Following up on the first AHDR, this second in the series sought to deepen the analysis on the first of the three identified development deficits: knowledge. Despite the presence of significant human capital in the region, AHDR 2003 concluded that disabling constraints hamper the acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies. This human capital, in a more promising framework, could offer a substantial base for an Arab knowledge renaissance. Surveying the status of knowledge in the Arab region, the Report found that the quality of education has deteriorated severely, and there is a severe mismatch between the labour market and the education system. Adult illiteracy rates have declined but are still very high: 65 million adults are illiterate, almost two-thirds of them women. Some 10M children still have no schooling at all. One of the gravest results of their poor education is that the Arabs, who once led the world in science, are dropping ever further behind in scientific research and in information technology. Investment in research and development is less than one-seventh of the world average. Only 0.6% of the population uses the Internet, and 1.2% have personal computers. The Report affirmed that knowledge can help the region to expand the scope of human freedoms, enhance the capacity to guarantee those freedoms through good governance, and achieve the higher human goals of justice and dignity. It also underlined the importance of knowledge to Arab countries as a powerful driver of economic growth through higher productivity. Based on its analysis, the Report put forward a strategic vision for creating knowledge societies in the Arab world built on five pillars: Guaranteeing the key freedoms of opinion, speech and assembly through good governance bound by the law; Disseminating high quality education for all; Embedding and ingraining science, and building and broadening the capacity for research and development across society; Shifting rapidly towards knowledge-based production in Arab socioeconomic structures; Developing an authentic, broadminded and enlightened Arab knowledge model. AHDR 2003 makes it clear that, in the Arab civilization, the pursuit of knowledge is supported by