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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters In search of harmony
By Ibrahim Nafie
President Mubarak's address to the People's Assembly and Shura Council set clear guidelines for the national drive towards development and progress. All branches of government and institutions of civil society were addressed as the president urged greater cooperation in sharing the burdens of development, the better to share its fruits. This process, he added, requires scrupulous planning and a deep, mutual confidence.
The tasks ahead of us are difficult but not insurmountable. For our aspirations for progress and prosperity to become a reality, however, the responsibilities of the legislative and executive branches of government must be harmonised, together with the contributions of government and civil society.
Each institution of society has a function, one that cannot easily be relegated to another institution. Egypt, Mubarak stressed in his speech, is governed through institutions, not individuals. And only a rationally institutionalised society, founded upon stable systems of government, clearly outlined policies, established traditions and transparent laws can guarantee sustained progress and inspire confidence in the future.
Mubarak's insistence upon the importance of institutionalised government could not have been more emphatic. These institutions, he said, safeguard national goals. Under a system that regulates and coordinates collective responsibilities, no individual group can tamper with society's higher aims and manoeuvre them to the advantage of narrow personal, clique or class interests. Only such a system furnishes that even keel that fosters a balance between society's diverse groupings and, thereby, harbours social harmony.
Working together effectively within this framework is of paramount importance. Egypt, faced with enormous domestic and external challenges, cannot afford institutions bent on going their separate ways and impeding the work of others. Imagine, for example, the consequences of the lack of effective cooperation and coordination between the executive branch of government and the People's Assembly over the promulgation of a law essential to the national project for Egypt's revival. The result is obvious: disruption of the flow of work and the waste of precious time.
For President Mubarak, cooperation between the institutions of government and society is a dynamic mechanism that can undertake many important tasks. If, for example, the People's Assembly is vested with the responsibilities of legislation and monitoring government, and the executive is entrusted with the faithful implementation of law and policy, both branches of government have a joint responsibility to realise the betterment of the people. Thus, it is easy to envision how these two institutions can work together to promulgate or amend laws pertaining to such issues as health insurance, social welfare benefits and new urban communities. In addition to these areas of possible joint legislative action, the president offered other specific recommendations, including the formulation of a law to establish a mechanism to resolve disputes between citizens and departments of government, the creation of a unified labour law and legislation to guarantee the provision of housing loans for the young.
Addressing the many problems of the younger generation is itself a formidable and complex challenge. Of course the Ministry of Youth was established to attend to many of the pressing issues confronting half the nation's population. But, if we are to offer our young people brighter prospects and expand their scope of participation in building society, one major starting point, as the president noted, is to completely modernise the educational system, a process that entails everything from overhauling the curricula and updating teaching methodology to improving the physical environment of schools and colleges. For this purpose, we turn to the Ministry of Education whose task it is to develop the skills and acumen of the young in order to equip them for the labour market. In addition, today's youth also has immediate material needs, foremost among which is the nightmarish problem of housing. In this regard, the Ministry of Housing must calculate into its projections the financial capacities of graduates and new entrants into the working populace and draw up plans accordingly so as to ensure that appropriate housing is made available.
Cooperation among the various branches and agencies of government is only one route to social stability. No less important is cooperation between government and the various components of civil society in a position to contribute to the development of the young. If the government is prepared to foot the greater portion of educational and training costs, other sectors of society, each in accordance with its means and abilities, should be willing to meet the government half way. After all, investment in a generation, equipping it to handle the technologies of the age, is certain to bring manifold returns to both public and private institutions alike. Little wonder, then, that the president appealed for the rapid implementation of a comprehensive national youth training programme.
Addressing the problems of the young is intrinsically linked to realising a fairer society. This is why the government is keen for the private sector to increase its level of investment in the national economy and simultaneously intent that the fruits of development reach all sectors of society, the young, poor, aged and economically disadvantaged. In fact, in this regard the president has already pinpointed another important focus for our collective energies -- the problem of informal housing.
To collectively address such formidable challenges the president has called for a national conference for social development. This forum, intended to pool the contributions of all interested parties -- officials, educators, urban planners and others -- constitutes the correct starting point. For, without a thorough and holistic diagnosis of our problems we will not be able to formulate the programmes necessary to set the agenda and performance standards for national action.
