The report considers that cultural development is the heart of human development, which requires investing in the human element and developing the sciences, practical and theoretical knowledge, technical and applied skills and abilities, along with creativity in all the fields of cultural development.

This report which is considered the first of its kind in the Arab region and is issued annually by an Arab civil foundation with Arab financing, monitors cultural development in 22 Arab countries. The report includes 5 main topics:

Education (the diversity of higher education, educational opportunities, the crisis in regulating quality, humanities and social sciences in development, women in higher education, and the prospects for development); Media (printed, audiovisual, and digital); Copyright; Creativity in literature, cinema, theatre, music, and singing); and Annual Cultural Harvest in the Arab World during 2007.

The constituents included in the report were chosen based on two realities:

First: These constituents are indispensable for any desired cultural development, as reading through and understanding advancement and progress reveals the tight link between culture and development.

Second: These constituents are extremely interrelated and form together one cultural system.

Since the goal of this report revolves around establishing the values of knowledge, criticism, and review and their importance in the beginning of any Arab renaissance project, the report addressed the cultural development matter in the Arab World focusing on the cultural “tools” instead of the cultural “speech”. It analyzed the efficacy of the tools and institutions that contribute to the development of the mind and conscience in the Arab World, using an exhaustive and integrated description of the cultural development state in the Arab World. This extensive report includes tables and figures reflecting actual numbers that describe the Arab cultural state and enriching our Arab still meager database. Hopefully, this database would help us transition from the description and diagnosis phase to the criticism and anticipation phase, hence supporting any future Arab development.

The Arab Report for Development in the Newspapers:

“It is a distinguished status in the cultural work field as it provides real figures unveiling our cultural reality and its defaults (…) the report unveils the lack of the Arab cultural and intellectual production in all life fields” Poet and critic Bashir Ayad, Al-Watan Newspaper / 12 November 2008