BIC's MENA program organizes third workshop in Egypt

20 June 2008

The workshop introduced BIC's work to Egyptian media and civil society organizations, and focused on the activities of the international financial institutions in the country.

BIC's Middle East and North Africa (MENA) program recently held a workshop entitled “Understanding and influencing International Financial Institutions in Egypt” at the Land Center for Human Rights in Cairo on May 22, 2008. Around 50 journalists and civil society leaders working on a wide range of issues including gender, budget transparency, environment, agriculture, youth, education and human rights attended the workshop.

The objective of the workshop, which was organized with the help of the Land Center for Human Rights, was to update the Egyptian civil society organizations (CSOs) and media on the involvement of the different international financial institutions (IFIs) in Egypt. The participants were interested in learning and discussing about different tools available to them to influence IFIs activities in Egypt.

Following the workshop, Amy Ekdawi, BIC’s MENA Program Manager, accompanied by a number of journalists and CSOs representatives, attended a one day workshop organized by the World Bank and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture. The goal of this workshop was to present the World Bank’s “World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development” and discuss the Egyptian government's strategic plan for agriculture until 2017. The workshop was an opportunity to learn about the World Bank trends in agricultural development as well as the Egyptian government's plans in this field.

Two specific items in the Egyptian government's agricultural strategy raised concerns among civil society representatives: lifting subsidies on agriculture and privatization of irrigation by 2017. The participants also noticed that the strategy was focused on raising competitiveness in export crops at the expenses of crops for domestic consumption. It is worth reporting that the level of engagement of the multi-stakeholders, including farmers and civil society, in setting up this strategy was not clear, even for the World Bank representatives in this workshop.

BIC also organized a meeting for a small number of Egyptian CSOs representatives with the Safeguards Senior Advisor for MENA region in the World Bank, who was visiting Cairo from the World Bank's headquarters. The World Bank Cairo office staff joined in this meeting as well. A variety of issues related to civil society engagement in World Bank activities were raised at this meeting including, among others, the translation of important projects documents and their accessibility to the public, and the role interested CSOs can play in the design phase of any given project. The meeting was an opportunity to start a dialogue between the World Bank and Egyptian CSOs to promote more effective civil society engagement in the country.

Additional Information 

Land Center for Human Rights Seminar Summary, May 29, 2008 (Acrobat pdf, 80 KB)