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Abstract
Poverty, inequality, unemployment, torture and corruption were among the main reasons why millions of Egyptians protested to end 30 years of Mubarak's rule in January 2011. The speed with which the regime has fallen and its fragility surprised the world. This is mainly because of the false image of a stable, prosperous and progressive Egypt propagated by the state, ignoring another Egypt, a poor, suffering and repressed one. The failure to see the latter Egypt led to the fall of the former. The aim of this article is to tell a ‘tale of two Egypts’ by contrasting the experiences and voices of poor Egyptians with the misleading figures reported by the state. The analysis shows how the state was able to provide Egyptians with growth without equity, education without inspiration, employment without security, health services without care and voting without any real impact on political processes.
Notes on contributor
Solava Ibrahim is a research fellow at the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester. She holds a PhD and MPhil in development studies from Cambridge and an MA and BA in political science from the American University in Cairo. Her main research interests are poverty reduction, collective capabilities, empowerment and agency, and state- society relations in Egypt. Her publications include articles in the Journal of Human Development and Oxford Development Studies. She also published a book entitled The Role of Local Councils in Empowerment and Poverty Reduction in Egypt.
Notes
1 V Korotayev & JV Zinkina, ‘Egyptian revolution: a demographic structural analysis’, Entelequia: Revista Interdisciplinar, 13, 2011, p 165.
2 M Tadros, ‘Arab uprisings: why no one saw them coming’, Guardian, 5 February 2011, p 1.
3 S Sabry, ‘How poverty is underestimated in Greater Cairo, Egypt’, Environment and Urbanization, 22(2), 2010, p 526; gtz, Cairo's Informal Areas: Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials, Cairo: gtz, 2009, pp 29–30.
4 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: Urban Sector Update, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008, pp 11–12.
5 bbc News, ‘Egypt jails government officials over Cairo rockslide’, bbc News online, 26 May 2010.
6 G Essam El Din, ‘Corruption shockwaves’, Al Ahram Weekly, 8–14 August 2002.
7 bbc News, ‘Jail term for Egypt ferry owner’, bbc News online, 11 March 2009.
8 D Sullivan & K Jones, Countries at the Crossroads: Egypt, Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2007, p 20.
10 Sullivan & Jones, Countries at the Crossroads, p 18.
11 A Hauslohner, ‘Egypt gripped by rising Muslim–Christian tensions’, Time, 8 November 2010.
12 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: Upper Egypt—Pathways to Shared Growth, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009.
13 Ibid, p 62.
14 ehdr, Youth in Egypt: Building our Future, Cairo: undp and Institute of National Planning, 2010, p 249.
15 D Marotta, R Yemstov, H El Laithy, H Abou-Ali, S Al Shawarby ‘Was Growth in Egypt between 2005 and 2008 Pro-Poor: From Static to Dynamic Poverty Profile', World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 5589, March 2011.
16 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt, p 9, emphasis added.
17 R Assaad & M Rouchdy, ‘Poverty and poverty alleviation strategies in Egypt’, Cairo Papers in Social Science, 122(1), 1999, p 13.
18 World Bank, Poverty Reduction in Egypt: Diagnosis and Strategy, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002, p vi; ehdr, Choosing Our Future: Towards a New Social Contract, Cairo: undp and Institute of National Planning, 2005, p 24; and ehdr, Youth in Egypt, p 249.
19 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: A Poverty Assessment Update, Report No 39885–EG, Cairo: Ministry of Economic Development and World Bank, 2007, p 12.
20 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: A Poverty Reduction Strategy for Egypt, Report No 27954–EGT, Cairo: Ministry of Planning and World Bank, 2004.
21 msed, Egypt: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals—A Midpoint Assessment, Cairo: Ministry of State for Economic Development, 2008.
22 ehdr, Youth in Egypt, p 148.
23 Ibid, pp 243–244; and ehdr, Choosing our Future, p 203.
24 Marotta et al, ‘Was growth in Egypt between 2005 and 2008 pro-poor?’, p 12.
25 AK Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p 1.
26 AK Sen, Inequality Reexamined, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992, p 110.
27 Sen, Development as Freedom, pp 53–56.
28 Research has been conducted also in Tafahna Al Ashraf, a rural village in the Delta region; however, because limited space, the findings of this research will not be presented in this article.
29 ehdr, Local Participatory Development, Cairo: undp and Institute of National Planning, 2003; ehdr, Youth in Egypt; and World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: A Poverty Assessment Update.
30 Ninety percent of the respondents were poor, ie were living on under 1$ or 2$ a day. These respondents earned less than E£515 per month, ie they fell under the official $1 at ppp a day poverty line in Egypt. I understand the limitations of this measurement method; however, the main aim of the study is not to measure the level of poverty, but rather to articulate the perceptions of the poor. During the fieldwork it was confirmed that, in these communities, people living on roughly E£600 per month or less were considered poor. Only those earning more than E£1000 per month were considered ‘well-off’. Thus, in addition to the ‘objective’ poverty line, a communal understanding and subjective measures of poverty were also used.
31 Marotta et al, ‘Was growth in Egypt between 2005 and 2008 pro-poor?’, p 20.
32 msed, Egypt.
33 Marotta et al, ‘Was growth in Egypt between 2005 and 2008 pro-poor?’, p 9.
34 Korotayev & Zinkina, ‘Egyptian revolution’, p 155.
35 JB Nugent & M Saleh, ‘Intergenerational transmission of and returns to human capital and changes therein over time’, Economic Research Forum Working Paper Series, 468, Cairo, 2008; and T Afifi, ‘The poor in the Egyptian labour market during an adjustment period’, Economic Research Forum Working Paper Series, 117, Cairo, 2007.
36 ehdr , Youth in Egypt, p 148.
37 S Sabry, ‘The Social Aid and Assistance Programme of the government of Egypt—a critical review’, Environment and Urbanization, 17(2), 2005, pp 27–41.
38 Ibid, p 36.
39 undp, Human Development Report 2010: The Real Wealth of Nations—Pathways to Human Development, New York: undp, 2010, pp 145–146.
40 ehdr, Egypt's Social Contract: The Role of Civil Society, Cairo: undp and Institute of National Planning, 2008, p 294.
41 World Bank, The Road not Travelled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008, p 312.
42 World Bank, Making Egyptian Education Spending more Effective: Egypt Public Expenditure Review, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005, p 11.
43 Ibid, p 16.
44 Nugent & Saleh, ‘Intergenerational transmission of and returns to human capital’, p 1.
45 msed, Egypt, p 9.
46 ehdr, Youth in Egypt, p 82.
47 F El-Hamidi & J Wahba, ‘Why does the mena region have such high unemployment rates?’, Working Paper 270, University of Pittsburgh, 2006.
48 Population Council, A Survey of Young People in Egypt, Cairo: Population Council, 2010, p 92.
49 R Assaad & G Barsoum, ‘Rising expectations and diminishing opportunities for Egypt's young’, in N Dhillon & T Yousef (eds), Generation in Waiting, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2009, pp 67–94.
50 msed, Egypt, p 9.
51 M Said, J Salevurakis, C Schluter, J Wahba & S Al Azzawi, ‘Unemployment, job quality and labour market stratification in the MED region: the 8 cases of Egypt and Morocco', FEMISE research project FEM 32-20, November 2009.
52 Korotayev & Zinkina, ‘Egyptian revolution’, p 164.
53 Population Council, A Survey of Young People in Egypt.
54 J R Harrigan & H El-Said, ‘The economic impact of imf and World Bank Programs in the Middle East and North Africa’, Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, 6(2), 2010, pp 1–25.
55 Population Council, A Survey of Young People in Egypt, p 86.
56 Ibid, p 86.
57 ehdr, Youth in Egypt, p 82.
58 Said et al, ‘Unemployment, job quality and labour market stratification’.
59 Population Council, A Survey of Young People in Egypt, p 90.
60 ehdr, Youth in Egypt, p 82.
61 Ibid, pp 29–35.
62 RP Rannan-Eliya, ‘The distribution of health care resources in Egypt: implications for equity’, Harvard International Health Systems Program, September 1999.
63 Sabry, ‘The Social Aid and Assistance Programme of the government of Egypt’, p 34.
64 J Brownlee, ‘Executive elections in the Arab world’, Comparative Political Studies, 44(7), 2011, pp 807–828.
65 L Blaydes, ‘Who votes in authoritarian elections and why? Determinants of voter turnout in contemporary Egypt’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 31 Aug–3 September 2006.
66 Brownlee, ‘Executive elections in the Arab world’, p 810.
67 Brownlee, ‘Executive elections in the Arab world', p 811, and D Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
68 Singerman, Avenues of Participation.
69 R El-Mahdi, ‘Enough! Egypt's quest for democracy’, Comparative Political Studies, 42(8), 2009, pp 1011–1039.
70 Sullivan & Jones, Countries at the Crossroads, p 1.
71 H Kandil, ‘Revolt in Egypt’, New Left Review, 68, 2011, pp 17–55.
72 EED Shahin, ‘Egypt: the year of the elections and elusive political reforms’, Mediterranean Yearbook, Med 2006, Barcelona: European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) pp 129–131.
73 JB Alterman, ‘Egypt: stable, but for how long?’, Washington Quarterly, 23(4), Autumn 2000, pp 107–118.
74 S Cook, ‘Political instability in Egypt’, Contingency Planning Memorandum no 4, Council on Foreign Relations, Centre for Preventive Action, August 2009, pp 1–7.
75 M Zahid, ‘The Egyptian nexus: the rise of Gamal Mubarak, the politics of succession and the challenges of the Muslim Brotherhood’, Journal of North African Studies, 15(2), 2010, pp 217–230.
76 Kandil, ‘Revolt in Egypt’, p 18; Shahin, ‘Egypt’, p 130; and Zahid, ‘The Egyptian nexus’, p 218.
77 Kandil, ‘Revolt in Egypt’, p 18.
78 Zahid, ‘The Egyptian nexus’, p 220.
79 L Smith, ‘Egypt after Mubarak’, Middle East Quarterly, 2010, XVII(4), pp 79–83; and Zahid, ‘The Egypt nexus’, p 219.
80 El-Mahdi, ‘Enough!’, p 1014.
81 Zahid, ‘The Egyptian nexus’, p 223; and Smith, ‘Egypt after Mubarak’, p 81.
82 J Stacher, ‘Egypt: the anatomy of succession’, Review of African Political Economy, 35(116), pp 301–314.
83 Kandil, ‘Revolt in Egypt’, p 24.
84 Shahin, ‘Egypt’, p 129.
85 Kandil, ‘Revolt in Egypt’, p 30.
86 Zahid, ‘The Egyptian nexus’, p 220.
87 Alterman, ‘Egypt’, p 114.
88 A Leander, ‘Drafting community: understanding the fate of conscription’, Armed Forces & Society, 30(4), 2004, pp 571–599.
89 World Bank, Arab Republic of Egypt: A Poverty Reduction Strategy for Egypt, p vi.
90 ehdr, Choosing our Future, p 1.