CAIRO -- A UN agency said Tuesday that Arab countries score the "lowest freedom" rating in the world, seriously handicapping development in the 22-member Arab league.

The United Nations Development Program warned the Arab world to empower women, promote good governance, and boost the knowledge of its citizens to avoid lagging behind in development.

Arab countries need to address three "key deficits" -- a "freedom deficit," a "women's empowerment deficit," and a "human capabilities and knowledge deficit" -- concluded the UNDP's first report on Arab countries, released at the Arab league's Cairo headquarters.

Arab countries' scores on the human development index, taking into account such factors as literacy and life expectancy as well as GDP, ranged from Kuwait's, only slightly lower than that of world leader Canada, to Djibouti's, not much better off than bottom-ranking Sierra Leone.

In general, however, the Arab world's development scores did worse than countries' incomes might suggest. "The Arab world might be said to be richer than it is developed," the report concluded.

The Arab world consists of "rich nations of poor people," Clovis Maksoud, former Arab league representative to the United Nations who sits on the report's advisory group, told AFP.

"If (Arab countries) do not heed some of the recommendations, they might end up as poor nations of poor people.

This (report) is a warning and an alternative," Maksoud said.

In the late 1990s, the Arab world had the lowest "freedom score," an index of civil and political liberties, of the seven world regions, the report found.

Without political freedoms, quality of governance suffered, it argued.

Standardized indicators of graft, accountability, political instability, government effectiveness, regulatory burdens, and the quality of institutions in Arab countries all lag behind the world average, the report noted.

"It is no longer possible to delay the establishment of the pluralist, democratic state in the Arab world," the report concluded.

The Arab world also suffers from a "women's empowerment deficit", characterized by the lowest regional rate of women's participation in parliaments and the work force.

Although Arab countries had "shown the fastest improvements of female education of any region... these achievements have not succeeded in countering gender-based social attitudes and norms that exclusively stress women's reproductive role," the report said. The report recommended removing "gender gaps in the quality and relevance of education," and removing "gender bias in labor markets."

Finally, low levels of computer use and an educational system out of sync with the job market contributed to the Arab world's "knowledge deficit," the report said.

Arabs also had the lowest level of access to information and communications technology, the report found: Only 1.2 percent have access to computers, and only half of that proportion use the Internet. While acknowledging "great strides in education" in the Arab world over the last half-century, the report pointed out "problems of quality and relevance (leading) to a significant mismatch between the labor market and development needs on the one hand, and the output of the education system on the other."

It advocated raising teacher salaries and enhancing teacher performance, expanding the use of modern information technology, permitting well-regulated private higher education, and other reforms.