ABSTRACT
Since its dawn, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed new challenges in the Arab world, and across the world that have adversely inflicted unforeseen types of damage upon the traditional notion of globalization. This has, inherently, resulted in the initiation of several new pathways for research and innovation by local government agencies in various Arab nations. Spillovers from government and industry-specific research and investment to combat COVID-19 may yet prove to be beneficial to several of the sectors involved. In view of such opportunities and growing demand, research and innovation systems in the Arab world may need to rethink and reorient research priorities to align them with imminent needs. Furthermore, the Arab world is facing daunting challenges in research and innovation due to the deep scarcity in the human capital and material resources needed to shore up economic prosperity. It is therefore imperative that Arab countries start to recognize and appreciate all genuine efforts tallied by researchers in the ways of advancing the wellbeing of the communities, and along the way help the underlying economies move in progressive pursuits. To help the various sectors of the economy go about the various activities suggested in this chapter, one can readily surmise that an all-out effort would require some concerted activities involving the concerned government agencies, participating academic institutions, first-tier researchers, various components of the industrial sector, together with funding agencies that would take up much of the expenses involved in the process of research and innovation so as to keep pace with the rest of the knowledge-based societies around the world. Indeed, this would necessitate that the various sectors (medical and health, agricultural, industrial, information and communications technology, and the educational sectors) leverage existing infrastructures and embark upon new capital investments that are ready to shoulder the responsibility of effectively moving the Arab world into the post-COVID era rapidly and successfully. To do that, we must be able to identify sectors and institutions that can be potential partakers in the various activities of the processes involved. This would readily lead us to identify a few national organizations, which would offer access to their infrastructures to researchers and the various participating industries involved. Furthermore, the process must occur in piecemeal fashion, starting with the vital segments of the economy and transcending gradually to other segments, while observing health-directed practices in all phases, until the economic lifecycle would kick into a normal setting. The effects of the pandemic on these sectors and industries, as well as natural market forces and regulations are discussed in this chapter. These effects must be identified for policymakers to be guided toward more evidence-based planning to address the challenges that are inherently associated with them. This chapter also addresses ways and efforts of helping the various sectors go about the recommended research priorities in preparation for an era of reconstruction to build resilient national economies that are readily amenable for pan Arab integration in the post COVID-19. We finally recommend avenues and policies whereby the Arab world could levy some of the great benefits that have accrued because of the COVID-induced drawbacks in restricting global trade and economic integration. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the findings of a scoping review that maps exploratory evidence and gaps in research on information and communication technology (ICT) access and use among older persons in the Arab region. This review is part of a larger project that studies ICT access and use and related challenges faced by older adults in Qatar. A search was conducted in eleven scientific databases and search engines covering empirical studies published in English and Arabic between January 2016 and June 2021. Eleven studies were retrieved in the final corpus. A thematic analysis alongside the PRISMA for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) was used to retrieve the findings. Our analysis identifies smartphones and social media applications for communication and information sharing as the most accessed and used technologies by older persons in the region. Moreover, our review highlighted the importance of the sociocultural factors in shaping ICT access and use by older persons in the region. The functional limitations of older persons in interaction with certain technology factors such as usability, functionality, and accessibility were also highlighted as major challenges inhibiting ICT access and use by this population segment. This scoping review provides a comprehensive overview of ICT access and use, and the factors affecting them among older persons in the Arab region. It highlights the scarcity of research on the subject in the region. It also stresses the fact that there is a need for more research on older persons and their caregivers in the context of the Arab world. More culturally appropriate need-based and adapted technologies are also recommended. Our review is a comprehensive source for researchers and technology developers interested in targeting and engaging older adults in the Arab region.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 virus has spread rapidly to the Arab World, affecting the public health and economy. As a result, people started communicating about the pandemic through social media such as Twitter. This paper utilizes text mining to extract useful insights into people’s perceptions and reactions to the pandemic. First, we identified 11 general topics under which COVID-19 tweets emerging from the Arab region fall. Next, we generated training data consisting of English, multidialectal Arabic, and French tweets that were manually classified into one or more of the identified 11 topics via crowdsourcing. These training data were then used to train various deep learning models to automatically classify a tweet into one or more of the 11 topics. Our best performing models were then used to perform a large-scale analysis of COVID-19 tweets emerging from the Arab region and spanning a period of over one year. Our analysis indicates that the majority of the tweets analyzed emerged from Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt and that the majority of the tweets were generated by males. We also observed a surge in tweeting about all the topics as the pandemic broke followed by a slow and steady decline over the following months. We finally performed sentiment analysis on the analyzed tweets, which indicated a strong negative sentiment until mid of September 2020, after which we observed a strong positive sentiment that coincided with the surge in tweeting about vaccines.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic caused a state of panic worldwide. Mixed messages were given about its risk and how to contain it, when trust in authorities and reliable scientific information are essential to reduce unnecessary scares and inappropriate risk perceptions. We know little about public concerns and opinions in health authorities in the Arab world. Thus, an attempt was made to generate such information through a web-based survey. A total of 1074 subjects from Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia were recruited to explore their perception of food and non-food risks of infection and the influence of the source of information, trust, and attitudes towards the local authorities' communication of risk. Seventy percent of the respondents were concerned that COVID-19 may be transmitted through food. The perception of risk from touching contaminated surfaces and food packaging and being exposed to infected people during food shopping was even higher. For only less than half of the respondents, the information from local authorities was considered trustworthy and the associated risk communication and response to false rumors were timely, effective, and clear. But the satisfaction level among the Jordanians was remarkably stronger than for the Lebanese and Tunisian respondents. The demographic factors, trust in information, and attitudes towards authorities' performance in risk communication did not influence risk perceptions. Respondents' knowledge was limited based on their chief sources of information, such as social media, local news media broadcasts, and announcements by the World Health Organization. Our conclusion is that unnecessary fear increases among the public when risks that impact heath are unknown. More research in the Arab region is needed to understand the determinants of risk perceptions considering psychological factors on the risk to health. Unfortunately, it is difficult to restrict or contain misleading information from various forms of social media. We recommend that for reducing fear and building confidence with the public for appropriate action during the pandemic, local authorities should enhance the quality and level of details of the information that they share during such crises.