Global Knowledge Index 2025 (GKI): Global Performance Signals ▸ An Extended Reading of Egypt ▸ A Pra
Global Knowledge Index - (GKI)
Global Knowledge Index 2025 (GKI): Global Performance Signals ▸ An Extended Reading of Egypt ▸ A Practical Reform Roadmap (6–24 months)
Global Knowledge Index 2025 (GKI): Global Signals… Egypt’s Extended Reading and a Practical Reform Roadmap
Essential facts ▸ methodology & key dimensions ▸ global & regional trends ▸ Egypt’s position ▸ priority performance gaps ▸ a practical reform roadmap (6–24 months).
The Global Knowledge Index 2025 (GKI 2025) is an international benchmarking tool that addresses a practical policy question: to what extent can countries produce, diffuse, and use knowledge to support development, competitiveness, and sustainability. The 2025 edition carries added significance because it comes with a “redesigned” and broader framework, more closely aligned with current transformations—from the digital economy to sustainability—and expands the measurement scope to 195 countries. (UNDP)
For Egypt, this edition is particularly valuable because it enables a multi-dimensional reading across: pre-university education, higher education and training, research and innovation, digital infrastructure, the economy, and environmental/social/governance (ESG). This helps “decompose” performance into manageable and trackable components rather than relying on a single overall rank. The index also offers a shared language for comparison with regional peers and competitors (e.g., UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan within ENCC’s comparison packs for this release), supporting the identification of the most consequential gaps for a more productive, inclusive, and sustainable transition toward a knowledge economy.
The central challenge is not a single pillar, but the system’s ability to convert enablers (education, digitalization, RDI, governance) into economic and knowledge impact. For Egypt, priority gaps emerge in ICT Impact, Economy Inputs, and Learning Quality, alongside relative strengths that can be leveraged (notably the Learning Environment in post-secondary education and some elements of economic impact).
1) Data Card
The GKI 2025 results were unveiled during the Knowledge Summit hosted in Dubai on 19–20 November 2025, within the partnership between UNDP and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF). (Knowledge For All)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Official name (EN) | Global Knowledge Index (GKI) 2025 (gki.knowledge4all.com) |
| Official name (AR) (ENCC phrasing) | مؤشر المعرفة العالمي 2025 |
| Publishing partners | UNDP + Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF) (knowledge4all.org) |
| Latest label | 2025 |
| Launch / unveiling date (best-effort ISO) | 2025-11-19 (Unveiled during 19–20 Nov 2025) |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Type | Index with rankings + interactive data portal |
| Status | Active ✅ |
| Coverage | 195 countries |
| Official portal (Landing/Data) | https://gki.knowledge4all.com/ |
| Official context (results / summit) | https://www.knowledge4all.com/ |
| Supporting reference (2025 updates) | https://www.knowledge4all.com/knowledge-summit-2025-roadmap |
2) Methodology & Key Dimensions (Precise, Slightly Expanded)
How is the index built?
GKI 2025 uses a hierarchical structure: 6 sub-indices, each composed of 3 pillars, further broken down into sub-pillars/indicators. In 2025, the index uses 115 indicators drawn from 40 international sources, selected based on criteria such as availability, recency, continuity, and coverage. (Knowledge For All – Roadmap)
Official sub-indices (EN → AR) with brief definitions
- Pre-university education | التعليم قبل الجامعي: Access, learning environment, and learning outcomes.
- TVET & Higher education | التعليم والتدريب التقني والمهني والتعليم العالي: Access, environment, and outcomes, with TVET integrated into post-secondary measurement.
- Research, development & innovation (RDI) | البحث والتطوير والابتكار: Research capacity, innovation outputs, and impact.
- Information & communications technology (ICT) | تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات: Connectivity, enablers, and impact.
- Economy | الاقتصاد: Inputs, outputs, and impact linked to the knowledge economy.
- Environmental, social & governance (ESG) | البيئة والمجتمع والحوكمة: Environmental performance, social resilience, and governance quality.
The 2025 edition reflects a broad structural update designed to align with fast-changing knowledge-sector dynamics and improve cross-country comparability. (Reference: Roadmap)
3) Global & Regional Signals
First: the global picture
The 2025 framework places knowledge at the center of “sustainable development,” capturing the interaction between education, innovation, digital transformation, the economy, governance, and sustainability. (UNDP)
Second: an extended regional reading (Arab countries / MENA context)
Egypt’s profile is presented within the Arab countries grouping, with a clear regional position. In ENCC’s regional comparison packs for this release (Egypt vs. UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan), a general pattern emerges: regional leaders tend to perform better at converting digital infrastructure, education, and governance into economic/innovation impact, while “impact” and “inputs” remain the hardest constraints for mid-tier performers—setting the stage for Egypt’s fact-based reading below.
4) Egypt’s Performance (Facts)
Egypt’s overall position (0–100)
- Global rank: 87 out of 195
- Regional rank (Arab countries): 9 out of 22
- Overall GKI score: 36 (with the same global rank: 87)
Egypt across the six sub-indices (value + rank)
- Pre-university education: 52 (117)
- TVET & Higher education: 44 (79)
- Research, development & innovation (RDI): 17 (79)
- ICT: 33 (107)
- Economy: 37 (104)
- ESG: 48 (102)
Egypt’s strongest 3 components (by value/rank within pillars)
- Learning Environment in TVET & Higher education: 81 (32)
- Economy Impact: 42 (63)
- Environmental performance (within ESG): 46 (72)
Egypt’s weakest 3 components (policy-relevant gaps)
- Economy Inputs: 35 (165)
- ICT Impact: 17 (132)
- Learning Quality (within pre-university outcomes): 22.95 (140)
The signal is not only about rank—it is about the shape of the bottleneck: the knowledge economy needs a connected chain from learning quality to digital and economic impact. The weakest three components indicate core “conversion constraints” that should be targeted through an integrated package (high-impact digitalization + stronger knowledge-economy inputs + improved early learning outcomes).
5) Compact Tables / Lists
Table 1: Main dimension ↔ sub-component ↔ Egypt status ↔ brief policy note
| Main dimension | Sub-component (Pillar/Sub-pillar) | Egypt status (value/rank) | Brief policy note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-university education | Availability & Provision | 42 (144) | An access/equity gap that constrains early knowledge-capital accumulation. |
| Pre-university education | Learning Quality | 22.95 (140) | The priority is not enrollment alone, but improving reading/math/science outcomes. |
| TVET & Higher education | Learning Environment | 81 (32) | A relative strength that can translate into higher productivity if linked to labour demand and innovation. |
| TVET & Higher education | Availability & Provision | 15 (101) | Access/capacity/spending constraints affect advanced skills formation. |
| RDI | Research & Development (R&D) | 15 (72) | Mid-tier rank but low value; priority is raising R&D intensity and strengthening economic linkages. |
| ICT | Connectivity | 20 (103) | Infrastructure upgrades matter, but are insufficient without “impact conversion” policies. |
| ICT | Impact | 17 (132) | The largest gap: turning digital transformation into productivity, scalable services, and marketable knowledge. |
| Economy | Inputs | 35 (165) | Weak inputs constrain financing and scaling of knowledge-economy activities. |
| Economy | Impact | 42 (63) | Relatively stronger impact signal; opportunity to raise returns by fixing inputs and enabling innovation. |
| ESG | Sound governance | 37 (128) | A governance gap that raises implementation costs and weakens policy effectiveness and investor confidence. |
6) Performance Gaps & Improvement Priorities (Top 5)
- ICT Impact gap: value 17, rank 132 → limited digital impact → prioritize end-to-end digitization of services/payments and reusable public data.
- Knowledge-economy inputs gap: rank 165 → insufficient knowledge investment/financing → targeted incentives and financing instruments for knowledge activities.
- Learning quality gap: rank 140 → weak learning outcomes → strengthen measurement and interventions in reading/math/science.
- Access gap in TVET/higher education: rank 101 with low value → access and quality bottlenecks → scale demand-linked skills pathways.
- Governance gap (ESG): rank 128 → higher implementation costs and uncertainty → improve transparency, regulatory quality, and performance measurement.
7) Practical Reform Roadmap (6–24 months)
| Action | Lead / partners (suggestion) | Measurable KPI | Time horizon |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Digital Transformation Impact” program to raise ICT Impact | ICT/digital government + finance + service delivery entities | % of government services with fully digital journeys + measured actual usage | 6–12 months |
| “Knowledge-economy inputs” package | Finance/planning + central bank + private sector | Launch financing/incentive tools for knowledge activities (innovation/software/applied R&D) | 6–12 months |
| “Learning Quality” initiative (reading/math/science) | Education + assessment/evaluation bodies | Improved national learning metrics + annual tracking of outcome gaps | 12–24 months |
| Scale demand-linked TVET/higher education pathways | TVET/higher education + industry | # of joint skills programs + cooperative training/employment placements | 12–24 months |
| Link RDI to the economy (RDI-to-market) | Research/higher education + industry | # of applied projects + university–industry partnerships | 12–24 months |
| Improve governance, regulatory quality, and delivery tracking | Regulators + monitoring & evaluation bodies | Publish executive KPIs and transparent periodic delivery updates | 6–24 months |
The roadmap connects directly to Education (SDG4), Decent Work & Growth (SDG8), Industry/Innovation/Infrastructure (SDG9), and Institutions & Governance (SDG16), and can be translated into short-cycle delivery dashboards.
8) Focused Conclusion
The GKI 2025 results place Egypt in a “mid-tier” performance position globally across a large sample (195 countries), with relative strengths—particularly the learning environment in post-secondary education and parts of economic impact—alongside sharper gaps in ICT impact, knowledge-economy inputs, and learning quality in pre-university education, as well as governance signals requiring improvement. For ENCC, this reading provides a practical basis to update benchmark tracking (UAE/Saudi/Turkey/Jordan) and feed the annual competitiveness workstream, transforming the index into a “management dashboard” that converts results into measurable priorities and short-cycle follow-up.
9) Selected Official References
- GKI 2025 portal (Landing/Data):
https://gki.knowledge4all.com/ - Official project context (Knowledge4All):
https://www.knowledge4all.com/ - Knowledge Summit 2025 roadmap (structure/methodology updates):
https://www.knowledge4all.com/knowledge-summit-2025-roadmap - UNDP story (launch context and expanded coverage):
https://www.undp.org/arab-states/stories/decade-knowledge
10) Publishing Link Bundle
10.1 Further reading (official)
- Data portal for extracting series/benchmarks:
https://gki.knowledge4all.com/ - Roadmap page (2025 methodology highlights):
https://www.knowledge4all.com/knowledge-summit-2025-roadmap - Knowledge Summit page (institutional partnership UNDP–MBRF):
https://www.knowledge4all.org/knowledge-summit-2025
```