Supporting Dictatorship and Promoting Human Rights? UN Technical Assistance to Egypt

Abstract

Does UN human rights technical assistance weaken or strengthen authoritarian dictatorship in Egypt? Drawing on interviews with UN, donor and domestic human rights non-governmental organization representatives conducted in Egypt in 2007 and 2010, this article focuses on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Egypt's BENAA Human Rights Capacity Building Project. The UNDP partnered with the Egyptian government to train public officials in human rights protections and to facilitate elite socialization, a strategy recommended by social constructivism. Critics, however, assert that such technical assistance strengthens rather than weakens authoritarianism. This article explores conflicts between UN and state goals in implementing technical assistance projects, as well as competing assumptions about norm diffusion and internalization held by supporters and critics of the programme.

Keywords:

• Egypt
• United Nations
• human rights
• norm diffusion
• technical assistance

Notes

1. The author completed one to three interviews in English per day. To facilitate a more relaxed interview environment, the author took notes and transcribed them immediately after the interviews. She assured respondents that their comments would not be directly attributed to them. Respondents include two American University in Cairo (AUC) professors; Al Ahram Weekly and al Masry al Youm journalists; two BENAA representatives; representatives of donors including the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Ford Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Near East Foundation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID); representatives of Egyptian human rights NGOs including Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies, April 6 Youth Movement, Arab Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA), Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights (EFRR), Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Maat Center for Judicial and Constitutional Studies, el Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, One World Foundation, and United Group. Other respondents included representatives of CID Consulting, Center for Socialist Studies, Egyptian NGO Support Center, and John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement. NGO respondents do not represent all Egyptian human rights organizations, but they represent a substantial segment of the Egyptian human rights community. NGO and other respondents were identified and interviews solicited based on a ‘snowball’ method of utilizing suggestions of previous respondents.

2. The BENAA Project web address is: http://tinyurl.com/6bn5ujt.

3. This analysis does not intend to cast aspersions on donor, UNDP or BENAA Project representatives who are committed to promoting human rights, and who generously offered time for interviews with (and trust in) the author. Rather, the author assumes that all who participate in these activities have good intentions, but may have different calculations of risk and benefit than the author.

4. Indeed, UNDP officials often use the pronoun ‘we’ to refer to UNDP/government activities.

5. Reflecting the UNDP's practice of compromise and sensitivity to government concerns, one of the UNDP's three ‘qualifications and experience’ requirements for BENAA's National Program Director was ‘[s]olid ability to exercise judgment and discretion in dealing with sensitive matters’ (GoE 2005, p. 20).

6. State officials included ‘Police Officers; Public Prosecutors; Administrative Prosecutors; Agents of Administrative Control; Judges; Judges of the State Council; Judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court; Family Courts; Teachers at the Ministry of Education’ (Ahmed 2009, p. 10).

7. A dissatisfied BENAA donor representative explained: ‘The project design of the first phase was good, ambitious: to mass-produce trainings for those who have the mentality that will never change. But that kind of training—thousands of people trained—won't make any difference. We asked about results on output, indicators. This is the most difficult: [determining] the impact of this project. No impact [was visible] at outcome. They need indicators that can show change … we weren't satisfied’ (interview 20 June 2010).

8. In the same interview Haggag added, rather disingenuously, ‘The human rights situation in Egypt is better. I speak honestly. I don't work for the government’.

9. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7w-ajSwib0&feature=player_embedded [Accessed 23 August 2011].