NGOs in Egypt
NGOs in Egypt
DPIGMAN@auc-acs.eun.eg
Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:43:51 GMT
American University in Cairo
Political Science 535
Class Discussion November 6, 1995
Topic: The Role of Women NGOs in Egypt
Alya'a Borhan
My reason for choosing this topic: Actually I trained for a short while in a NGO funded by the Gulf fund and in addition the deputy director of this NGO, Dr. Ama ny Kandil happened to be a former professor of mine at the Faculty of Economics a nd Political Science, Cairo University. Also, I interview Dr. Kandil and I refer red to several of her works on NGOs.
General Information about NGOs:
There are 13,526 NGOs in Egypt with a membership of 3 million. About 60% of these are active. These figures were gathered from a variety of sources and constitute an estimate.
There is a range of government involvement in NGOs from totally funding and contr ol to complete independence. Most NGOs in Egypt fall somewhere in between. The Egyptian government requires all NGOs to register and audits their books once a year.
1. Third World countries actually imitated the example of advanced countries in creating NGOs.
2. The presence of NGOs in a society acts as a kind of indicator of the existenc e of a certain degree of democracy and political participation on the part of the layman. The existence of NGOs actually demonstrates that the Egyptian governmen t has begun to give way to the NGOs and in fact, recede from its active involveme nt in the economic and political system. The privatization of aspects of the gov ernment and the divesiting of certain functions as governmental responsibilities has enhanced the position of NGOs.
3. The NGOs play a variety of roles; e.g. establishing old age homes, daycare ce nters, etc...but foremost the NGOs must play an active role in the development pr ogram of Egypt.
The Role of Women NGOs in Egypt
1. There is a long history of NGOs in Egypt concerned with women's issues. Origi nally, many of the charitable organizations were sponsored and run by the elite w omen of Egyptian society; lately there has been more grassroots participation in these organizations. 2. Women's NGOs (whether religious or secular) have had a traditional role in co nducting various charity activities (attached are tables demonstrating the geogra phical and activity dispersal of NGOs). There is a concentration of organization s in the Delta region and Cairo while comparably fewer exist in Upper Egypt. 3. USAID has been quite active in funding programs of concern to women such as m other and child health programs, youth activities, child care, and aid to the han dicapped. Another thrust has been female education and literacy to improve the s tatus of women. 4. The Financing of NGOs is surprising. Only 10% of funding comes from the gove rnment of Egypt, 5% from foreign aid, and the remaining 85% from religious, mainl y Islamic NGOs. This is rooted in the Islamic obligation of alms, 2.5% of income , and the idea that a pious Muslim will contribute time to aiding those less fort unate. Doctors and teachers often donate their services to clinics and schools a ttached to mosques. 5. Some of the problems faced by NGOs include:lack of volunteers, government int ervention, lack of 'new blood,' lack of faith in NGOs, lack of coordination amon g NGOs and geographical disparity of services. A National Steering Committee of NGOs has been established in Egypt and is trying to coordinate the efforts of the many NGOs functioning in Egypt. 6. Some of the important issues relevant to the discussion which were raised in the NGO forum at the Beijing Conference on Women was the rise of advocacy NGOs ad dressing concerns such as domestic abuse and sexual harassment and also, the divi sion of opinion on Islam and women's rights. 7. The new role for Women NGOs includes a move into advocacy fields such as femi nism, human rights, domestic abuse, personal status law.
Conclusion
The Women NGOs promote civil society because they encourage economic and politica l autonomy of women. The status of women and their awareness of their rights and obligations as members of Egyptian society is a measure of civil society. Politi cally active women and politically active men make a civil society. Thank you!
