USAID, population control, and NGO-Led democratization in Egypt: The fate of the ICPD programme of action

Democratization

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 706-722

  Landolt, Laura K ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Democracy assistance; International Conference on Population and Development; Non governmental organization; Reproductive health paradigm; United States Agency for International Development

Indexed keywords

ADVOCACY; DEMOCRACY; DEMOCRATIZATION; NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION; UNITED NATIONS; WOMENS ORGANIZATION;

AFRICA; EGYPT; NORTH AFRICA; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 34547598302     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340701449585     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Gihan Shahine, 'Two to Go', Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line, No.799 (15-21 June 2006), http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/799/eg22.htm, accessed 26 January 2007.
2. See William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
3. For USAID, civil society is defined broadly and can include both business and nonprofit associations. See USAID, 'Office of Democracy & Governance: Civil Society', http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/ democracy_and_governance/technical_areas/dg_office/civ.html, accessed 24 March 2007.
4. Liberal analyses focused on civil society as the locus of democratization include: Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986)
5. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civil Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993)
6. Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)
7. Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
8. For cogent criticism of liberals' insistence on the primacy of civil society in democratic transitions see Omar G. Encarnacion, 'Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy in Spain', Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2001), p. 55.
9. Maha M. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
10. Vickie Langohr, 'Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics? Egypt and Other Liberalizing Arab Regimes', in Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist (eds), Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005).
11. Sarah Ben Nefissa, 'Introduction', in Sarah Ben Nefissa, Nabil Abd al-Fattah, Sari Hanafi, and Carlos Milani (eds), NGOs and Governance in the Arab World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005), pp. 1-16.
12. Maaria Seppänen, 'Honduras: Transforming the Concessional State?', in Jeremy Gould (ed.), The New Conditionality: The Politics of Poverty Reduction Strategies (London: Zed Books, 2005), p. 115.
13. According to UNICEF, donor assistance in the 1980s went to a 'relatively small percentage of [NGOs], usually to those which already possessed comparatively stronger capabilities'. This assistance did 'not appear to have had the sufficient "critical mass" to significantly strengthen the NGO sector as a whole'. United Nations Children's Fund, 'Strategy Paper on the Strengthening and Promotion of Egyptian NGOs', unpublished (1994), p. 4.
14. See, for example, Rita Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2000)
15. and Arthur MacEwan, Neoliberalism or Democracy? Economic Strategy, Markets, and Alternatives for the 21st Century (London: Zed Books, 2001).
16. The instrumentality of democracy promotion is revealed in ongoing US efforts to undermine democratically elected leaders that resist US interests, as in Venezuela, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. Unexpected forms of democracy promotion can include financing NGO-led activities before and during elections to engineer the victory of pro-US groups. Subverting national sovereignty to achieve US goals cannot be a promising means to strengthen democratic institutions - especially when the local press reports such activities.
17. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, 'Egyptian Law 32 on Egypt's Private Sector Organizations: A Critical Assessment', Ibn Khaldoun Working Papers, No.3 (1996), p. 8.
18. In 1974 the US identified Egypt as one of 13 countries requiring concentrated population control efforts. See 'United States International Population Policy', Population and Development Review Vol. 8, No. 2 (1982), pp. 423-34. In 1999 Egypt remained among the top five recipients of such funding.
19. See PHN Projects Database (USAID), Overview of Population Activities
20. Warren C. Robinson and Fatma H. El-Zanaty, The Impact of Policy and Programme on Fertility in Egypt: The Egyptian Family Planning Success Story (Cairo: National Population Council and the Office of Population of USAID, July 1995), p. 45.
21. Marja Exterkate, Domestic Resource Flows: Report of a Case Study in Egypt (Cairo: UNFPA, December 1997), p. 19. Other external sources of funding include United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Bank, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperartion and Development (BMZ), and the foreign affairs ministries of Finland, Japan, and the Netherlands.
22. USAID asserted that 'for every pound invested in family planning, the government of Egypt would save LE2.1 in food subsidies, LE9.3 in educational expenses, LE5.8 in water costs, LE4.4 in sewage expenses, LE6.4 in housing expenditures, and LE2.1 in health costs'. Mona Khalifa and Madiha Abdel-Razik Said, 'Policy Recommendations of Population Research in Egypt, 1994-1998', POLICY Project, Cairo, 1999, p. 42.
23. USAID consultants argued that 'massive government subsidies for food and fuel... [mean] that the vast resources absorbed by this programme are spent on accommodating a growing population with minimal leverage applied to limiting that growth... [and] prevent the social costs of high fertility frombeing directly felt by most families'. See W. Parker Mauldin, H.T. Croley, Lenni Kangas, Ann Leonard, Geoffrey McNicoll, and Emmanuel Voulgaropoulos, Egypt USAID Population Sector Assessment 1982, Volume 1: Population Sector Assessment (Washington DC: USAID, 1982), p. 9.
24. Since 1981, USAID 'has been required by Congress to channel a minimum of 12 per cent of expenditure, raised to 13.5 per cent from 1986, through NGOs'. Gerard Clarke, 'Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Politics in the Developing World', Political Studies, Vol. 46 (1998), p. 37. The percentage of funding channelled through NGOs has increased, and the US GAO noted that 'in fiscal year 2000, USAID directed about $4 billion of its $7.2 billion assistance funding to private voluntary organizations (charities) working overseas'.
25. United States General Accounting Office, 'Foreign Assistance: USAID Relies Heavily on Nongovernmental Organizations, But Better Data Needed to Evaluate Approaches', (2002), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ d02471.pdf, accessed 14 August 2006.
26. USAID/Egypt, 'About USAID/Egypt: USAID-Egypt History', http://egypt.usaid.gov/Default.aspx?pageid=6, accessed 1 October 2006.
27. See, for example, Gamal El-Din, 'Parliament Approves NGO Bill', Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line, No.431 (27 May-2 June 1999), http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/431/eg7.htm, accessed 1 June 2006.
28. In 1982 Egypt's new president signalled his support for population control by chairing the National Population Council.
29. New Woman Research and Study Center, 'Egypt. A Mixed Vision: Privatizing Health Care, Reducing Access', in Joan Ross Frankson (ed.), Risks, Rights and Reforms (New York: Women's Environment and Development Organization, 1999), p. 31.
30. USAID/Egypt, 'A.I.D. Project Evaluation Summary: Part I. Activity Evaluated: The Family Planning Systems Development (MOH/SDP) Subproject of the Ministry of Health under the Population/Family Planning II Project (263-0144)', 1993, p. 13.
31. Betty Butler Ravenholt and Susan Russell, 'Legal and Regulatory Environment Affecting Family Planning in Egypt', A Special Report Prepared for the National Population Council under the OPTIONS II Project, USAID, Washington DC, 1993, p. 43.
32. See Nadje Al-Ali, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women's Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
33. and Azza M. Karam, Women, Islamisms and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998).
34. Abdelrahman (note 4), p. 128.
35. Madiha Abdel-Razik Said and Scott Moreland, Study of the Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Family Planning Programmes (Cairo: Research Management Unit, Institutional Development Project, National Population, 1998), pp. 2, 37.
36. Ibid., p. 2. Note that public funding also includes funds from external donors.
37. Betty Butler Ravenholt and Madiha Said, 'Analysis of the Legal and Regulatory Environment for Family Planning in Egypt: An Update', POLICY Project, Cairo, 1997, p. 15.
38. Mona Khalifa, Suneeta Sharma, and Scott Moreland, 'Issues and Strategies for Sustainability of Family Planning Services in Egypt: A Background Analysis Paper', prepared for the Population Sector Sustainability Conference, Alexandria, Egypt, 3-4 May 2001, POLICY Project, Cairo, 2001, p. 5.
39. USAID/Egypt, '2000-2009 Strategy'.
40. The definition of NGO utilized here includes local, regional and national-level domestic nongovernmental groups, and excludes businesses, trade unions, and political parties. For an exhaustive discussion of definitions in the Egyptian context, see Amani Kandil, Civil Society in the Arab World (Washington DC: CIVICUS, 1995).
41. United Nations Population Fund, 'Report of the International Conference on Population and Development', Cairo, 5-24 September 1994, p. 105, http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/ 570_filename_finalreport_icpd_eng.pdf, accessed 11 February 2007.
42. Advocacy NGOs 'constitute 0.4% of the total number; cynics dub them "conference-promotion NGOs"'. Katerina Dalacoura, 'US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001', International Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 5 (2001), p. 976.
43. Al-Ali (note 23), p. 193. The MOSA is now known as the 'Ministry of Insurance and Social Affairs' (MISA), but to avoid confusion I continue to use the older acronym.
44. Ibid,
45. Mona Zulficar, 'A Turning Point for Egyptian NGOs', Ru'ya, No. 5 (1994), p. 22.
46. Al-Ali (note 23), p. 193. Liberal feminist Aziza Hussein is an influential figure in Egyptian and international population circles. Among other things she was the first woman appointed to Egypt's delegation to the UN General Assembly, a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, founder and president of the Cairo Family Planning Association, as well as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
47. National NGO Commission for Population and Development (NCPD) Gender Equity Subcommittee, The Road from Cairo to Beijing (Cairo: Ministry of Population, no date), p. 1.
48. 'Declaration by the National NGO Steering Committee for the ICPD', unpublished mimeo, no date, p. 3.
49. NCPD (note 36), p. 2.
50. Interview with author. All interviews referenced in this article were undertaken in Cairo in fall 2001.
51. External attention was drawn to the activities of Egypt's domestic security forces mainly because of concerns about possible terrorist attacks at the conference.
52. Karam (note 23), p. 155. According to Seif El-Dawla and Ibrahim, 'women started to become interested in subjects which usually had not been part of their agendas. All over the country workshops were organized in which these issues were addressed and facts presented. These encounters were very fruitful and exciting and gave hope for a re-emergence of a movement that was restricted for so many years. Organizations met which had not known about each other before. Agreements were found in areas where organizations thought they would stand alone. At the same time, it became clear that there were some areas in which no agreement could be found, like the analysis of the role of the state, the attitude towards Islamists, the role of religion and political parties. Women did not try to overcome these differences, but respected them. Before and during the conference, no one wanted to sell out these exciting and long missed encounters for a consensus which would never have been obtained anyhow'.
53. Quoted in Al-Ali (note 23), p. 195.
54. United Nations Population Fund, 'Support to NGOs Towards the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action', January 1996, p. i.
55. Interview with author.
56. Ravenholt and Said (note 27), p. 16.
57. Interview with author.
58. Zulficar (note 34), p. 22.
59. Interview with author.
60. Aziza Hussein notes that Ibrahim's arrest and detention created an 'atmosphere of great fear, because anyone is liable to be put in jail at any moment, and have his life shattered ⋯ How can you even begin to talk about civil society in this kind of atmosphere?' Quoted in Aziza Sami, 'The Sound of Civil Silence', Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 6-12 March 2003, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/628/eg2.htm, accessed 22 September 2006.
61. Interview with author.
62. The $1.5 million budget involved a 'multi-bi' contribution of $422,137 from UNFPA, $503,703 from the EU, $495,270 from the Netherlands, and $75,000 from the Ford Foundation. United Nations Population Fund (note 42).
63. Ibid., p. ii.
64. Ibid.
65. Interview with author.
66. One respondent noted that Maher Mahran 'was used by the government and thrown away' and after the ICPD was 'stripped of his authority', and then the National Population Council was 'dismantled in a bloody coup. Mahran didn't resign [from the NPC] but holds on by his fingernails'. Similarly, another respondent notes that the government 'didn't bother to be graceful and dissolve the [Ministry of Population] after a [respectable] span of time'. Interviews with author.
67. Linda Oldham, 'Report to Population Office, USAID/Cairo: NGO Programming in Family Planning', unpublished, May 1997.
68. Interview with author.
69. Interview with author.
70. Ravenholt and Said (note 27), p. 35.
71. Interview with author. For more information on possible effects of the competition between states and NGOs over donor funding, see Abdelrahman (note 4), p. 62.
72. 'A 1999 survey undertaken by the Arab NGO Network for Development found that Egypt's civil society sector employed the equivalent of 629,223 full-time workers, accounting for $1.5 billion in expenditures (approximately 2 per cent of Egypt's Gross Domestic Product) - and this survey did not take into account the substantial impact of religious-based groups'. Kareem Elbayar, 'NGO Laws in Selected Arab States', The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, Vol. 7, No. 4 (September 2005), http://www.icnl.org/knowledge/ijnl/vol7iss4/ special_1.htm.
73. United Nations Population Fund (note 42), p. 105.
74. The NCNW is a US-based NGO that allocates funds to Egyptian NGOs for USAID. Contractor-run umbrella organizations in Egypt reduce USAID's administrative and oversight responsibilities in allocating money to Egyptian NGOs, and also help hide the sources of funding from Egyptian critics. In an interview with the author, however, one respondent noted that the NCNW is a 'front for USAID'.
75. North South Consultants Exchange, 'Final Evaluation Report: NCNW/UMI Grant to Planning Assistance (PA) to Support the National Commission for Population and Development (NCPD)', Cairo, 1999, p. 5.
76. Ibid., p. 15.
77. Interview with author.
78. Interview with author.
79. North South Consultants Exchange (note 63), p. 5. UNFPA did not encourage NCPD autonomy from government, and also strongly supported NGO-government cooperation. In an interview with the author, one UNFPA representative argued that 'it is important for the UNFPA to work with NGOs that can urge the Ministry [of Health] to move closer to reproductive health'.
80. North South Consultants Exchange (note 63), p. 7.
81. Ibid., pp. 10-11.
82. Ibid., p. 19. Emphasis added.
83. Interview with author.
84. North South Consultants Exchange (note 63), p. 21.
85. Ibid., p. 26.
86. Interview with author.
87. Interview with author.
88. Interview with author.
89. Interview with author.
90. Interview with author.
91. A respondent from a UN agency noted that 'in Egypt, the distinct distrust of NGOs displayed by government at the center disappears at the governorate level'. Interview with author.
92. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) outlined in the Millennium Declaration (2000) largely ignore reproductive health, and this helps to explain declining donor support and funding for the ICPD Platform for Action after 2000, and the UN's decision not to organize an anticipated population conference in 2004. The absence of reproductive health in the MDGs is explained in a number of ways, including difficulty in quantifying desired outcomes, lack of input and participation from the international community of NGOs, and widespread belief that the Bush administration opposes reproductive health. See Barbara Crossette, 'Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals: The Missing Link', Studies in Family Planning, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2005), pp. 71-9
93. Ann K. Blanc and Amy O. Tsui, 'The Dilemma of Past Success: Insider's Views on the Future of the International Family Planning Movement', Studies in Family Planning, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2005), pp. 263-7
94. and 'Beyond the Millennium Development Goals', Women's Health Journal No. 1 (2005), pp. 31-3.