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Millennium Development Goals

Egypt approaches the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a country with a dual identity. The first Egypt is led by a dynamic, reform-minded government, and is determined to achieve prosperity and social cohesion through the mechanism of overall economic and political reform. The second Egypt is, through the effects of decades of deeply embedded poverty and political disaffection, distanced from and indifferent to the first. The majority of Egypt’s 76 million people are in the latter category. Slowly, however, things are beginning to improve.

Based on the standard UN indicator of $1 per day, Egypt has indeed already achieved the MDG for extreme poverty. It is encouraging therefore that the country is also targeting 'capability poverty' (the ability to provide both food and non-food needs), where progress has been much less rapid. In the base MDG year of 1990, 24.3 percent of the population was assessed to be below this poverty line but by 2004 the figure had reduced only to 20.2 percent. Especially vulnerable communities remain, such as Bedouin in the Sinai and Red Sea Coast areas.

Educational access is also improving, and the country has made progress in the area of literacy. Since 1990, Egypt’s youth literacy rate (ages 15-24) has climbed from 61% to 85%. Net primary school enrolment is now considered to be around 95%. Continuing education for girls remains a problem, however, especially in the rural south. Several recent programmes have aimed to tackle this issue.

Rural kids, Egypt © Jeff Black

Attitudes toward gender equality do not seem to be changing as rapidly. Egypt was recently ranked bottom of a World Economic Forum survey of 58 countries measuring women's empowerment. It is true that gender inequality indicators tend to mirror more general inequalities across the country, with the ratio of girls to boys in primary education and the share of women in non-agricultural employment lower in the generally poorer rural south than in the cities and the north. In October 2006 a sexual harassment scandal deeply troubled conservative Egyptian society. A number of women were publicly groped by a gang of youths outside a downtown cinema – but the response from official quarters was to deny that it had ever happened.

Improvements in maternal health and child mortality rates are one of Egypt’s development success-stories. Since 1970, Egypt’s child mortality rate has dropped dramatically, from 157 per 1000 births, to 26 per 1000 in 2004, and maternal mortality rates have seen a similar decline.

There is evidence that attitudes towards HIV/AIDS (which are covered by the MDG for reduction of major infectious diseases) are changing. The Arab world has lagged behind other nations in recognition of AIDS as a problem that needs dealing with at home. In November 2006, however, a major conference of over 300 religious leaders from 20 Arab states convened in Cairo to discuss ways of raising awareness of AIDS and associated issues in their communities. The conference was a major step towards breaking down the attitude of denial which has hampered the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Egypt.

Overall, progress toward the MDGs is largely subservient to what is presented by the government as its process of economic and political 'reform', a process which of late has not been without criticism.

Politics

Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

If you only know two things about Egypt's political affairs, it should be these: first, Egypt has been under varying levels of authoritarian government since time immemorial – and in particular under that of President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. The second is that Egypt is the United States' second most-favoured-nation (with US$50 billion in assistance since 1979) in the Middle East after Israel. These two facts are intimately related, as the US administration's continued support of the Mubarak government, despite its abuses, is in no small part driven by fear of the Islamist bogeyman – the Muslim Brotherhood being the next most important political group in the country after the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), despite being officially proscribed.

Calls from the US State Department, local NGOs, political parties, and others for genuine democratic choice triggered NDP efforts to repackage the 2005 Presidential elections as offering ‘unprecedented electoral freedom’ and created hopes that meaningful political reform was imminent. However, characterized by violence and intimidation, the polls were widely criticized as being corrupt, producing a predictable 88% win for President Mubarak. Parliamentary elections saw a strong showing from Muslim Brotherhood-backed independent candidates in the People's Assembly, now with an unprecedented 88 seats from the 444 contested-seat total.

In November 2006, President Mubarak announced further constitutional changes, which were billed as allowing greater electoral participation from opposition parties. While some positive elements were contained in the amendments, in general the changes obviously target the ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to operate in Egypt. Amendments forbidding political activity based on religion and enshrining wide-ranging police powers of surveillance and arrest were criticised as being intended to shore-up NDP power at the expense of the Islamists. Having pushed through approval of these changes by referendum in March 2007, the government visibly retrenched its position, and backpedalled on political reforms. Elections to the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, in June 2007, were widely condemned as being corrupt, violent, and undemocratic.
NGOs and Civil Society

Egypt’s large number of NGOs (somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000) cover all aspects of society, from simple community groups to internationally recognised human rights organisations. The state, however, views NGOs as an area that must be controlled, for fear of civil society becoming the locus of meaningful political opposition. Successive legislation, the latest of which being Law 84 of 2002, has ensured that the arm of government can extend deep into the affairs of such groups – even as far as vetoing appointments to boards.

Together with professional syndicates and trade unions, NGOs have therefore traditionally experienced a high degree of state interference. Advocacy groups working for human rights, political freedoms or environmental issues have been especially vulnerable to state bullying. In particular, the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS), was singled out for State Security harassment in 2007, as the government blamed its members for inciting a wave of strikes that had been troubling the country’s industrial sector. All branches of the Centre were forcibly closed.
Economy

Egypt’s finances exhibit the characteristics of both a fully liberalised marketplace and a state-controlled economy. The cabinet of current Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has since 2004 focused on privatisation and modernisation of industry and services. Foreign investment has been strong (the government confidently expects $10bn in 2007) and the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (CASE) has been the best performing in the region for several years running.

Yet, after a decade of IMF-led economic restructuring, state involvement in the economy remains strong. Egypt’s subsidy bill is higher than ever – suggesting that the benefits of economic growth are not reaching the majority of the population. More worrying is that subsidies, including those on food and fuel, at 9.6% of GDP in 2006, are outstripping spending on health and education combined.

Cairo street trader © Jeff Black

The rural-urban divide and growing population worries threaten progress against poverty. Cash incomes remain low (with 43% in total under the $2 per day mark) and unemployment threatens not just economic but social stability with 1.2 million young jobseekers entering the market each year.

The government maintains that it is on-target to achieve the 6% GDP growth annually needed to employ those new workers . The IMF, however, has pointed to a ‘serious mismatch’ between the kind of jobs that are being created, and the graduates that the public education system produces.
Human Rights

Since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in ’81, Egypt has been governed by so-called Emergency Laws, which allow for indefinite detention of suspects and deny the right of appeal in certain cases. The continued use of military and State Security courts to try civilian cases infringes the basic right to a fair trial before an independent judiciary. In 2005, President Mubarak hinted that he would repeal the Emergency Laws and replace them with state security legislation. In the event, the political 'reform' promised in that year has evolved into a tightening of state control when in April 2006 the Laws were extended following terrorist attacks in Dahab. The administration seems unable to see the link between the continued presence of emergency law and the continued presence of terrorism.

Cairo street demonstration © Jeff Black

The past year has also seen crackdowns on demonstrators, activists and journalists that criticize the regime too vocally. Dozens of pro-democracy activists, Islamists and regime opponents have been arrested and imprisoned. Frequent reports of torture and intimidation of pro-democracy activists have been emanating from Egypt's overcrowded jails. Egypt has yet to reply to a request by the UN special rapporteur on torture for an official visit.
Information and Media

The state of ‘Emergency’ remains the justification for heavy press censorship, and a culture of non-criticism of the state in the country’s major media organs, which in any case are mostly state-owned. July 2006 saw a widespread strike by independent and opposition newspapers in protest against new laws governing the press – which entail jail terms for writers who question the financial integrity of public figures. Egypt remains one of the few countries that regularly imprisons journalists for what they write, despite an election promise by Mubarak that this situation would end. In November 2006, Reporters Sans Frontieres ranked Egypt among 13 governments considered Enemies of the Internet.
Environment

Nile at Aswan © Jeff Black

Although changes in attitude are beginning to come from government level after decades of industrialisation and environmental carelessness, in general Egypt’s environmental performance is not encouraging. As anyone who has breathed for an hour in Cairo’s noxious fume-choked atmosphere will confirm, air pollution is a major problem, and an area where Egypt lags well behind its regional neighbours. In the 2006 Environmental performance Index presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Egypt ranked a lowly 130th (out of 133 countries) for air quality. The country’s overall environmental performance was rated as 13th out of 15 Middle East and North African nations, just ahead of Syria and Yemen.

As in the rest of the world, climate change issues are beginning to give serious concern. Egypt’s Nile Delta is particularly at risk from sea-level rise, which would threaten freshwater resources, crop production, fishing livelihoods and encourage the spread of diseases such as malaria.

Egypt, which accounts for just 0.57% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, has approved Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects under which richer countries can gain carbon credits, a notable example being the wind-farms at the Red Sea town of Zafarana.




Jeff Black is is a freelance journalist. His work has appeared in The Independent, The Middle East, IRINnews.org and other outlets. He lives in Cairo. Visit his website here http://jeffblack.wordpress.com

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