The recent visit by an Ethiopian popular diplomatic delegation, which included a variety of prominent public, religious and cultural figures and that reciprocated a visit by an Egyptian popular diplomatic delegation to Ethiopia, plus a clear willingness on the part of the Egyptian and Ethiopian governments to ease tensions, bridge differences and resume tripartite negotiations (which include Sudan) over the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam project throw into relief the question of how people's diplomacy can contribute to promoting closer Egyptian-African relations. Egyptian foreign policy has an old and natural interest in Africa, even if the intensity of this interest has varied over time in accordance with numerous factors and variables connected to the development of the infrastructure of Egyptian society and the extent of its strength and efficacy and with the degree of dynamism of Egyptian foreign policy in general, and its efficacy in Egypt's vital regional sphere in particular. Diplomacy is the instrument most commonly used by nations in order to advance their foreign policy outlooks or objectives. As the arts of diplomacy evolved there emerged different types that have taken place alongside conventional diplomacy, such as summit diplomacy, head-of-state diplomacy, parliamentary diplomacy and popular diplomacy. Popular or public diplomacy, or the diplomacy of dialogue or soft strength, have become among the most influential forms of diplomacy in the modern world. This is largely due to the growing role that public opinion and non-governmental organisations have come to play in shaping the foreign policies of nations. Simply put, this type of diplomacy addresses society and public opinion in other countries, as opposed to governments and decision-making centres. It occurs in the form of exchanges of visits or meetings between unofficial delegations. Towards this end, it seeks to fulfil a number of principles and aims, most notably: — The advancement of mutual understanding between peoples by working to overcome differences over issues under dispute, or by encouraging openness to the cultures and attitudes of others. — The exploration of new horizons for cooperation. — Opening new channels for dialogue. — Promoting the national economy and attracting investment that will encourage mutual development. In Egypt, popular diplomacy towards Africa is not new. Indeed, it dates back to the 1950s when the government realised how important this form of diplomacy can be as an instrument to help liberate Africa from colonialism and to strengthen African independence and territorial integrity. Thus, efforts were made to strengthen links between non-governmental organisations in newly independent African nations, such as political parties, labour federations and syndicates, as well as to forge contacts with national liberation movements that were still struggling for self-determination for their peoples. In this latter context there emerged a popular organisation at the African regional level. The All-African Peoples' Conference (AAPC), formed in the late 1950s, convened three times and had a permanent secretariat with headquarters in Accra. In addition, there emerged the African Association in Cairo. Originally known as the African League, it served as a centre for the dissemination of revolutionary thought throughout Africa. It also furnished considerable amounts of political, military and material assistance to the African liberation movements that contributed to achieving the independence of African nations. However, afterwards this type of diplomacy receded, only resurfacing many years later, specifically following the 25 January Revolution in the context of efforts to shape new domestic and foreign policies. With respect to Africa in particular, the resurgence of popular diplomacy was a response to a long period of neglect and diminished priority of Africa in Egyptian foreign policy, a shortcoming driven home during the Nile water crisis when the upper riparian nations signed the Entebbe Framework Agreement in May 2010 without Egypt. Ethiopia's unilateral declaration of the beginning of construction work on the Grand Renaissance Dam could also be seen as a product of that neglect. In general, we can speak of two avenues for carrying out popular diplomacy towards Africa: visits by people's delegations, and efforts by Egyptian civil society organisations. The first was explored soon after the January revolution by means of an initiative that created a delegation of public, political and cultural figures that visited the Nile Basin countries of Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan in April and May 2011. The purpose was to build bridges and to re-establish Egypt's place in Africa and to counter the effects of the failure of official negotiations to resolve disputes over water. The tour, in which the Egyptian delegation met with officials and popular leaders in those countries, produced good results. Above all, both Uganda and Ethiopia pledged to defer their ratification of the Entebbe Framework Agreement until after the interim period in Egypt, which is to say until after post-revolutionary parliamentary and presidential elections. Also, Ethiopia reaffirmed its commitment not to impair Egypt's quota of Nile waters or Egyptian interests and it approved the creation of a team of Egyptian and Sudanese experts tasked with studying the possible effects of the construction of the Ethiopian dam. The visit by the Egyptian people's delegation, which promoted the cause of Egyptian-Ethiopian cooperation, was crowned by a visit by late Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi to Egypt, after which visits of other popular delegations took place, the latest being in 2014. Egyptian civil society organisations, meanwhile, pursued the developmental and institutional dimensions of Egypt's relations with other African nations. A group of Egyptian NGOs focused on the question of sustainable development as an avenue for advancing cooperation between Nile Basin countries. A number of Egyptian-based NGOs, such as Risala, Life Makers, the Doctors' Syndicate and the Arab Doctors Federation visited South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda during the period 1-11 October 2013. The ideas and projects they proposed for cooperation in the fields of education, combatting illiteracy, healthcare and awareness raising demonstrated how the developmental dimension as pursued by NGOs can supplement and reinforce official means for addressing other countries in the Nile Basin. That initiative also profiled a major new addition to Egypt's soft strength in Africa: Egyptian civil society organisations, which are well poised to communicate and work with their counterparts in the Nile Basin and elsewhere in the continent, particularly in the framework of the various causes of development. Another set of NGOs focus on the institutional dimension of Egyptian-African relations. The Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, for example, is an NGO concerned with discussion of foreign policy issues and that serves as an Egyptian forum for dialogue and exchanging ideas and promoting initiatives related to foreign policy issues. This council also works to develop working and cooperative links with similar centres and institutions concerned with foreign policy at the international level. To underscore Egypt's natural bond with the continent and to strengthen relations between our country and others on this continent, the council was keen to find partners in other African countries. Thus, it signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation with the Ethiopian Institute for Peace and Development in Addis Ababa. Signed in May 2011, the agreement calls for regular exchanges of visits, cosponsoring seminars on issues of mutual concern, joint publications and bilateral cooperation projects. Following through on this agreement, the two organisations exchanged visits in 2012 and 2013, during which delegations met with officials, political leaders and non-governmental leaders in the host country, and discussions took place on issues of mutual concern, not least of which was the need to promote all aspects of bilateral relations. The Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs also signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation with the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa in 2009. That agreement also called for cooperation, exchanges of visits and organising seminars and conferences on issues of mutual concern and led to numerous events that enabled joint discussion of the most pressing problems in Africa and the means to resolve them. The council is sustaining its efforts to find new partners and sign similar memorandums of understanding and cooperation with likeminded organisations in other African nations. In view of the importance of popular diplomacy in the contemporary world, this type of diplomacy needs to be enhanced in order to better enable it to realise the mutual interests between Egypt and other African nations. This is all the more the case as Egypt currently must engage all available political, cultural and economic instruments in order to re-establish its presence in Africa and to become more deeply involved in the continent, its crucial issues and pressing needs, especially in the Nile Basin and other regional associations in which Egypt is a member. However, in order to bolster the instrument of popular diplomacy the following steps must be taken: — The diplomacy of dialogue needs to be sustained in a way that is independent of crisis. Regularising dialogue will help optimise its benefits and enable the discovery of new horizons for cooperation and opportunities development projects. — Develop a network or forum as a framework for cooperation and coordination between the components of Egyptian society in order to strengthen channels of communication with the network civil society organisations that make up the International Forum of the Nile Basin that was formed in the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative. — Enhance the efficacy and role of Egyptian civil society, which is a vast storehouse of human and material resources and expertise that can be drawn on to increase the efficacy of Egypt's relations with other African nations and to expand opportunities for cooperation and economic integration, especially in the domain of electricity generation and energy. — Coordinate and work more closely with civil society organisations such as businessmen's associations, labour syndicates and chambers of commerce in order to stimulate their interest in directing attention to African nations. — Coordinate with popular initiatives in the framework of a greater focus on the economic developmental dimension in order to open more channels of communication and interaction with other peoples and societies. Efforts in this regard should contribute to developing awareness of the need for collective cooperation as opposed to the unilateral approach that has impeded agreement between Nile Basin countries over an institutionalised and legal mechanism for regulating the management of water resources. — Egyptian foreign policy makers need to design a comprehensive programme for Egyptian popular diplomacy in Africa. This programme must be informed by a realisation of the need to shift the basis of the Egyptian diplomatic drive in Africa from the political platform, that characterised the Egyptian approach during the 1950s and 1960s at the time when Egypt was a leader of the Third World liberation movements and sought to bolster anti-colonial struggles in Africa, to the economic and social developmental platform which will better enable Egypt to sustain and expand its influence and promote Egyptian interests. In conclusion, we should stress that Egyptian popular diplomacy should be credited for the role it played in repairing some of the damage that had been done to Egyptian-African relations in the past. These efforts were rewarded by the warm welcome that was accorded to Egypt's delegations to African countries. These delegations, for their part, did much to clarify misunderstandings and to rectify a negative image of Egypt that had taken root among segments of official and public opinion in some African countries. Therefore, we cannot overstate the need for Egypt to benefit from this type of diplomacy, in conjunction with other forms of diplomacy, in view of its potential for establishing direct contact between peoples in the interest of promoting their mutual welfare.
The writer is a political science researcher at Cairo University.
