Civil Organizations in Egypt

Reality and the Expected Role after the Revolution

of January 25, 2011
Prepared by
Mr. Ayman Okeil

The civil society organizations in Egypt represent an important pillar of the social and political
system. They had a prominent and influential role before and during revolution, and also
expected to play an important and pivotal role in the process of building the new system, crossing
in peace the transitional period of the homeland.
First Axis: Civil Organizations in Egypt
Background on Egyptian Civil Society Organizations
The concerned Egyptian Civil Society Organizations take here the form of associations and
NGOs, where the Assembly is lawfully identified as any group with a permanent organization,
for a definite or indefinite period composed of natural persons not less than ten persons or legal
persons in order not to make a profit (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics,
2009).
The available data indicate that the average annual number of associations notarized has
increased sharply in the last ten years. As is the case at the Arab level, it was at the national level,
the development occurred in the civil society organizations was not numerical increase only, but
exceeds to the diversity of fields of work which these organizations operate.
Egyptian Defense Organizations as a major player in the field of Social Mobility
Advocacy organizations or defense organizations can be classified to the areas of its activities
according to Human Development Report for Egypt 2008 as follows (National Planning Institute,
2008):
1 - Human Rights Organizations
There are 61 supporting organization working in the field of defending human rights since the
beginning of 2007, according to results of a survey of the General Federation of Associations and
NGOs. These organizations depend on three key areas of control, monitor cases of human rights
violation, and promote human rights culture and to provide direct legal assistance to victims of
human rights violations .
2 - Consumer Protection
The number of these associations formally Society is 671, according to the General Union of
Associations and NGOs. Despite the importance of the activities carried out by these associations

to address the rise in commodity prices, but we do not know almost nothing about its role and
effectiveness.
3 - Protection of Environment
Number of active associations in the field of environmental protection is about 76, but a large
number of associations record in its notary papers this activity officially with the Ministry of
Social Solidarity as one of the activities.
4 - Women's Organizations
The target of these organizations is to defend women's rights and their advancement by seeking to
influence policy makers and legislation and to raise awareness of political, social, economic and
cultural rights of women. There are two types of women NGOs and limited to decision-making
that target only women and seek to empower.
Second Axis: The Role of Civil Society organizations in the Creation of the Popular
Movement
A - The Joint Role of Civil Organizations with the Actors of Revolution (Before Revolution)
First: - The Political and Human Rights Role of Civil Organizations
The human rights movement has acquired credibility in a stage that political parties experienced
an identity crisis and discord with their communities, so there was paying attention to human
rights activists. They play a key role in the process of awareness and in the struggle as a human
rights is an international legal authority to control laws and procedures of the government. They
are not controlled by a majority vote. While the civil construction process of the social forces of
the trade unions and associations forms civil solidarity and integration grassroots initiatives and
the ultimate goal of human rights activists who are interested in mass production of political and
civil human more than interested in his leadership.
Second: The Joint Role of the Egyptian Civil Organizations with Political Parties before the
Revolution
The principal actor party in the revolution of January 25, 2011 in Egypt is youth. The previous
ten years of the revolution have witnessed an increased activity of the Egyptian civil society
organizations to work with this group in the areas of awareness of political rights, protect the

right of political participation and fight against violations exposed during their march towards
peaceful change.
Political and Human Rights Awareness of activists
The Egyptian civil society organizations played an important role in the education and raising
awareness of legal and constitutional rights and training in international instruments to protect
human rights as well as election monitoring skills training.
Providing Legal Support to Victims Violations Activists
The Egyptian human rights organizations is the main supporter of these young people by
providing various forms of legal support for those who are arrested or detained, as well as
monitoring and documenting all the violations that they face with regard to their right to organize
demonstrations and calls for strikes.
Human Rights Criticism of the Political Situation
Human rights of the political situation in Egypt have participated greatly in the January
Revolution. According to a report of human rights in the Arab world in 2010, which published
annually by the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, the causes of revolutions in the Arab
countries are represented in the dramatic deterioration of the situation of human rights and the
continuation of the approach authoritarian to devote immunity and impunity for gross violations
of human rights. In addition to the employment of declared emergency and anti-terrorism laws to
justify the commission of serious crimes and forging the will of the citizens through the
falsification of the general election.
The Joint Role of Civil Organizations with the Actors of the Revolution (during the
Revolution)
First: - Protect the Rebels Right in Peaceful Protest
Several civil society human rights organizations played a distinct role to stand by the rebels and
provide legal support for them and defend them before the judicial authorities on a voluntary
basis.
Also some human rights organizations organized campaigns under the title of No military trials,
referring each defendant to the courts. These campaigns have resulted from the military council
decisions in Egypt in the wake of the revolution to stop referring civilians to military courts.

Second: - Perform an urgent Societal roles during the Revolution

Many of the organizations of civil society campaigns organized in various regions of the
Republic, during and after the revolution in order to provide material and in kind assistance to
those affected by the revolutionary events, especially self-employed families that lost daily
revenue, also some of the organizations moved to set up small businesses providing steady
income for some families.
Third: - Awareness and Monitoring of Parliamentary Elections
Egyptian human rights organizations are keen to intensify their efforts in raising awareness about
the new electoral system that elections will be conducted, a mixed system between the closed
relative list and individual. Many of these organizations are trying hard to organize their efforts to
monitor the parliamentary elections to ensure fairness and guarantee a wider participation of
citizens.
C - Civic Organizations and Employing Electronic Media Techniques for Political Reform
First: - Civil Society Organizations and Media
Civil society plays an important and significant role in creating a knowledge society, and there is
a link and a dialectical relationship where each of civil society and the knowledge society aimed
at the development in all fields of the society. Civil society aims to achieve comprehensive
development by taking advantage of the possibilities and capabilities that provided by the
knowledge society and therefore, the goal of development desired by organizations to civil
society by building the information society and the use of technology, but there are some
obstacles, including poor IT infrastructure of civil society organizations.
Second: - The Electronic Media as a tool for Advocacy
Media is one of the most important advocacy and the effective means. In the Arab spring
revolutions, demonstrators and youth activists used social media networks to disseminate
unprecedented quickly information. The citizens and reporters used these tools publishing events
moment by moment, causing a radical shift in the traditional press.
Third: - Egyptian Civil Society Organizations and Electronic Media Employment
Egyptian civil society organizations expanded in their use of electronic media in the operations of
the mobilization and advocacy, and gaining human rights issues where they establish and manage

accounts, groups and pages on social networking sites, specifically Twitter, Facebook . They also
established a radio email on the Internet and the establishment of information networks on rights
issues rights as well as employment of technology information in election monitoring.
Third Axis: - The Role of Civil Society in the rebuilding of the new system - future vision
Civil Society in the face of Challenges:
1 - Restore the political balance
To ensure the success of the democratization process, it is important to restore balance to the
Egyptian political arena once more, and this is the responsibility of civil society organizations to
make a vital role in promoting their activities through:
Political Socialization
Civil society organizations play a prominent role in the process of political socialization, either
through their domestic laws, which is an example of the practice of the rules of democracy or
through activity training for the rehabilitation of young people to engage in political life with the
awareness of the most important foundations of democratic practice.
Control the Democratic Practice Process
Civil Organizations are independent and neutral observer on the mechanisms of democratic
practice. Civil society organizations play a prominent role in the course of the democratic
process and preserve the diversity and limit the influence and impact of movements that exploit
the feelings of the poor population. Civil society organizations contribute to maintain political
and cultural pluralism, and make it difficult for any party or party political monopoly of the
political arena.
Protection of the Political Organization Freedom
After the Revolution of January 25, 2011, amendments issued on the political parties law which
led to an unprecedented increase in the number of parties. Civil organizations must play an active
role in maintaining the protection of the right political organization and form political parties and
to join in monitoring the status of party practices and assist violation victims of the freedom of
association.

2 - Preserve the Community Unity

Civil society plays a pivotal role in the national unity issue. In Egypt, there are a number of
societal problems related to the national unity that surfaced after the Revolution of January 25,
2011. Civil society organizations play an important role to cope with such problems that threaten
the community unity by spreading culture of tolerance, acceptance of others and respect for the
principle of citizenship and to correct the misconception of some religious texts.
3 Maintain Development (to meet the social and economic challenges)
Egypt is one of the Arab countries that suffer from poverty, therefore, civil society organizations
are required to play a pivotal role in the issue of poverty eradication.
First: - Expansion in the provision of microfinance
The success of the Egyptian civic organizations in this regard depends on the fact that
microfinance has become an international trend prevailed as the practice of organizations and
institutions working in the field of development policies and programs included, since it is proven
that this approach is the strongest tool and most effective way to combat poverty.
Second: - The Expansion in the Provision of Social Services (Education - Health)
For the provision of health services, the Egyptian NGOs can depend on previous experiences
that have proved successful over the past decade where the NGOs in order to expand these
services to employ Egyptians trend- as individuals - to make voluntary contributions to be
spent in different and critical areas that affect largely on the Egyptian citizen, such as health
and education as one of the pillars of the advancement of the Egyptian citizen.
Third: Mobilize Local Community Efforts to implement Infrastructure Projects
It is important that the local NGOs should focus on mobilizing local efforts to implement
infrastructure projects (water - sewage - Electricity - paving roads, etc. ..) due to the high costs
of these projects that the governments do not alone succeed, to meet their full requirements.
Institutional and Organizational Problems (Challenges)
The civil organizations in the whole suffer of the many constraints and challenges that limit its
role.

External Constraints
Most prominent external constraints concern with the political public freedoms available, where
they remain, despite positive developments following the Revolution of January 25, 2011
compared to many other countries in terms of the mechanism of legislation, including the
restriction for the registration and publicity and the limit of freedoms and fundamental rights
particularly those concerned with freedom of association and freedom of opinion in addition to a
monopoly of the media in limiting the role of free and independent media.
These external constraints also concern with funding problematic, which is one of the most
influential restrictions on the work of NGOs.
Foreign Funding is conditioned by the approval of governments. The level of national funding
does not meet the needs of civil society organizations, whether due to poor culture of giving or
aligning to charity. Add to that legislation and laws in operation does not promote or provide
adequate facilities for the national donor institutions for their role in supporting community
organizations. On the other hand, the actual practices refer to varied opportunities to access
appropriate sources of funding, including witnessing the flow of grants and assistance to
organizations.
Internal Constraints
Most important restrictions are related to weak capacity of human, technical, and regulatory
organizations which are reflected in the lack of clarity of vision, objectives and limited
experience in building networks and partnerships in support of collective action.
Legislative Shortage as one of the most prominent challenges to the Egyptian Civil
Organizations
Many feel that civil society organizations in Egypt face obstacles and legislative and political
challenges, that limit independence and detract from the amount on the performance of its role
effectively and efficiently. There are a growing claims of need to take into account the new law
for NGOs set of standards, most notably that are association by the notification, and the need to
draw a relationship balanced between the point of management and associations refuse custody of
the civil work, and that the judiciary is the rule in any dispute between the point of administration
and NGOs and should also be free to legislate criminal penalties for voluntary activity, where the
contrast between the priorities of the government and the institutions of civil society as a whole,
and not NGOs only, may impose many restrictions and difficulties on the activity of certain types

of associations; which can be felt in the predominance of the service and charitable nature of the
role of NGOs so far (the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, 2003).
Conclusion and recommendations
Egyptian civil society organizations are expected to lead a pivotal role during the construction
phase of the democratic system, which began after the Revolution of January 25, 2011. The
current sheet presented prospective vision on roles that can be performed by these organizations
with the presentation of the problems and regulatory, legislative and institutional challenges
encountered and limit their ability to play this role, so we recommend at the end of this paper a
series of crisis measures to strengthen the role of Egyptian civil organizations during the next
phase, the most important of these recommendations include the following: 1 - Preparation of a new law governing the work of NGOs in Egypt instead of the law 84 of 2002
which is a barrier to the ability of these organizations to exercise their role and effectiveness of
the community freely.
2 - Provide funding sources and national and local NGOs working in the fields of development
and defense both to compensate for the lack of external funding sources.
3 - The civil organizations must develop their instruments and administrative practices of internal
democracy and allow for a more professional young leaders and the ability to give.
4 - The Egyptian civil organizations has to focus during the transition period on issues that could
affect the integrity of the process of democratic transformation, such as sectarian tensions, low
political awareness and economic damage.