A government initiative to develop the poorest 1,000 villages was put under scrutiny this week, reports Doaa El-Bey In an attempt to combat poverty, the government declared an initiative to develop the poorest 1,000 villages -- from a total of 5,000 -- in 2007. This week, during a symposium entitled "Policies of the New Social Contract: Towards the Integration of Social and Economic Policies," the government drew a rosy picture of the impact of the initiative in improving conditions in these villages. But others attending the symposium organised by the Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC), affiliated to the Egyptian cabinet, saw things differently, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the initiative in improving the status of the villages, let alone combating poverty. The initiative, which cost LE4.3 billion in the first phase, aims to improve the status of these villages through improving the infrastructure of basic education, opening classes to combat illiteracy, offering more jobs, establishing sanitation and drainage networks, and providing ambulance and postal services. Heba Handoussa, chairman of the Consultative Council of the Social Contract Centre (SCC) regarded the initiative as one of the most important projects in Egypt. It is even more important than the High Dam, she said. The SCC aims to monitor the execution of sustainable development programmes included in the human development reports of 2005 and 2008 through the cooperation of four development partners -- the government, civil society, the private sector and citizens. Studies were conducted to choose the 1,000 villages. "The rate of people living in absolute poverty in some of these villages reached 66 per cent. And 28 per cent more live in poverty," Maged Osman head of the Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) said. The first phase of the project that is supposed to end by the end of 2011 included 152 villages. They are distributed in six governorates. The experimental phase of the project took place in Nanna and Al-Asayed -- two villages in Beni Sweif and Sharqiya governorates. Sherif Abdel-Fayyad, a representative from the Ministry of Housing confirmed that the two villages witnessed a noticeable boom. He praised the initial outcomes of the initiative, which includes carrying out some 1,400 projects at present distributed over the villages participating in the first phase. He also added that the projects are subject to a comprehensive monitoring programme that makes sure that the villages are benefiting. The process of monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of the initiative has included evaluating the impact, efficiency and fairness of projects, and the cooperation of villagers and how sustainable the projects are. Evaluations take the form of baseline surveys before projects start, quarterly reports, quality assurance studies and thematic studies on specific issues. Osman explained that evaluation and monitoring is based on pre- and post-initiative studies in each village in addition to comparative analysis of the status of each village with and without the initiative. "The pivotal question in the evaluation is: What would be the social and economic status of these villages without the government initiative?" he added. Ali El-Salemi, a former development minister and representative of the opposition Wafd Party does not agree with Osman. He cast doubt on the initiative. To him poverty is not combated by providing services to the citizen, but by espousing a comprehensive strategy to improve the citizen in order to make him or her more productive. "If we need four years to improve 152 villages, then we are in need of some 26 years to improve the rest of the selected villages!" he said. While hailing every effort to improve Egyptian rural life, Amina Shafiq, a journalist and member of the Consultative Council of the SCC, also cast doubt that the initiative would achieve its desired results. She ascribed that to the fact that 83 per cent of the agricultural land in Egypt is divided into small patches owned by farmers. She called for the return of agricultural cooperation that would contribute to improving the state of the land as well as farmers. "The government needs to take three immediate steps: first it should stop its encroachment on agricultural lands, return to the known agricultural cycle, and return to the agricultural cooperation system," she said. Likewise, Refaat Al-Said, head of the opposition Tagammu Party, said building road networks and schools is important but it does not combat poverty. "We are supposed to raise the standard of living of the citizen, and that could only come through a fair redistribution of national income," Al-Said noted.
