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hortly after the Camp David accords were signed in
1978, development resources began pouring into Egypt,
but something vital was in short supply—qualified
local staff—to use these new funds effectively. The
Near East Foundation saw this need for a pool of skilled
development professionals who could provide necessary
project management, development and capacity-building
services. Given this important recognition, NEF
headed in a new direction in the Middle East with a
vital and continuing infusion of financial support
and technical assistance.
While continuing its own grant-making and programs
throughout the 1980s, NEF began to emphasize the professional
development of individuals, including forming strategic
partnerships with other organizations in order to provide
Egyptian nationals with training and education and
a chance to apply what they had learned. It
was called “the network,” more formally
known as the Development Practice Support Network.
NEF provided sustained funding for needed publications,
local learning as well as scholarships to study abroad. While
the focus was on Egypt, the network soon expanded into
Sudan and Jordan as well. It attracted young
professionals employed by local and international nongovernmental
organizations; and also tried to lure well-educated,
young people into the development field, particularly
encouraging them to work outside capital cities and
go into the countryside. An amazing 5,000-plus
development practitioners joined this network, and
many went on to key posts, both locally and internationally.
By 1990 a new organization clearly was badly needed
to accommodate them. Heroically, 15 network veterans
left secure jobs and an uncertain future to establish
the NEF Cairo affiliate—Center for Development
Services (CDS).
At first CDS carried on the previous professional
development activities, but then realized yet another
need existed—capacity building for institutions. For
the next several years the NEF affiliate focused on
improving management, finances, and service delivery
by collaborating organizations. A
wide range of Arabic-language courses and materials,
training, and technical assistance was developed by
CDS and provided to them.
Also, CDS approached leading lights in the field in
order to provide Arab-language materials that made
a significant contribution, in particularly on participatory
approaches; that in turn influenced development education
and practice throughout the region, raising standards
to new heights. Thousands of nongovernmental
organizations were strengthened and became valued partners
to their communities, donors and governments. That
CDS was based in Cairo was instrumental in its accomplishing
so much in such a short time, given many donors were
attracted to undertake development in a country of
70 million people, more than any other in the region.
CDS started offering project management services by
the mid-1990s, with its evaluations particularly in
demand. By 1998 this NEF Cairo affiliate had
60 full-time employees and had become the largest single
provider of Arab-language development services for
nongovernmental organizations in the Middle East. More
recently CDS has again repositioned itself, this time
addressing the roles of government and the private
sector. For peak impact and continuing sustainability,
CDS now is intensely involved in participatory planning,
coalition building, and the creation of structures
and networks.
Here are some cases in community
and sector development NEF-Egypt addressed in 2004-05.
At a meeting hosted by CDS, 40 lead researchers and
experts from six countries came together in Cairo to
address the subject of philanthropy for social investment
and development, with funding provided by the Ford
Foundation. CDS’s Egyptian philanthropy
program is examining the patterns and size of local
philanthropy and very importantly, its potential to
play a larger role in national development. This
pragmatic, action-oriented research is considered a
leading effort to understand local assets of all kinds
and mobilize them for community betterment. In
addition to Egypt, conference participants were from
Indonesia, Turkey, Britain, India and Tanzania.
In what could become the largest project every implemented
by NEF in this field in Egypt, CDS began the first
phase of agricultural development of reclaimed desert
land west of Lake Nasser, the largest fresh water reservoir
in the world and a fragile environment under increasing
stress. Funding came from Canada’s International
Development Research Center, supplemented by a grant
for training and market research from the UN International
Fund for Agricultural Development. The project
also represents a landmark for NEF’s growing
expertise in innovative and sustainable strategies
for communities with delicate ecosystems and changing
socio-ecological environments. The aim is to
enhance the health, income, and welfare of the 2,500
small landholding families of the area. That
includes an eco-health approach by CDS’s agro-ecology
project which designed a plan to overcome such difficulties
as poisonous bites from snakes and scorpions,
the remoteness of the area, and lack of medical and
emergency health facilities.
Ongoing since early 2003, CDS’s collaboration
with the Cairo-based Arab Council for Childhood and
Development aims to unify the efforts of five countries
in the Arab world and build their institutional capacity
to address the phenomenon of street children and their
lost human potential. Participating in this significant
joint initiative are Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Syria,
and Yemen. The project has three main phases
and CDS is involved in all of them: first, development
of a general framework for action, including planning,
budgeting and reporting; second, training workshops
for the five countries using that framework; and three,
creation of operational manuals and application of
the information and skills they contain. The
Council and CDS previously worked together on a training
program on project design and proposal writing for
24 participants from 13 Arab countries. This
project builds upon Near East Foundation’s involvement
with street children in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, and most-recently
in Armenia.
But one example of the wide expertise CDS makes available
to community-based organizations addressing a range
of needs and issues is a three-month project with the
Association for Young Diabetics. The organization
was founded in Egypt in 2000 and since has served over
one thousand cases, helping young diabetics and their
families better manage this disease. After conducting
a comprehensive organizational assessment of management,
finances and programs, CDS worked with board and key
staff to devise expansion and implementation plans,
then collaborated on securing needed funding to service
the increasing number of young diabetics across Egypt. NEF’s
health and population staff began to take note of diabetes
as a rising health concern in the late 1990s, not only
in Egypt, but throughout the region.
A first for Egypt, a fixed-price people’s market
for the Al Mounib District of Giza came about with
assistance from CDS and the United Nations Development
Program as well as cooperation from the Giza Governorate,
the Social Fund for Development, and Sekem companies. Only
Venezuela has a similar enterprise, and it was to the
popular market there that the field team went for a
first hand look at a market that operates by group
collaboration, and directly connects agricultural operators
with the consumers of their produce. Then CDS
started training 30 local volunteers and potential
market operators, designed the research and field work,
and supervised the team. NEF has a strong background
in establishing urban markets, including the upgrading
of the Tablita Market in Old Cairo and the establishment
of the El-Harameen Market in East Alexandria.
A year-long, multi-faceted involvement in upgrading
services to Egyptian children with disabilities and
special needs and at-risk youth in both urban and rural
areas included a number of different assignments for
CDS. A main objective of the World Bank-funded
project was to design a comprehensive training program
for staff of the Egyptian Ministry of Insurance and
Social Affairs, who work with at-risk young people
in Greater Cairo. In addition, CDS monitored
and evaluated 33 subprojects by service providers in
11 governorates throughout the country, leading to
a complete and streamlined database. Based on
this in-depth familiarity, CDS was asked to conduct
a comprehensive evaluation of the entire initiative
preparatory to World Bank review. Results indicated
nearly 45,000 people benefited—children, trainees,
participating organizations. The increase in
the number of service providers was perhaps the most
important contribution as well as the development and
testing of new, integrated ways of providing services. CDS’s
experience with these issues goes back to 1995, including
authoring a series of manuals on street children for
the Arab Council for Childhood and Development, and
long-term assistance to organizations like the Hope
Village Association, which works with street children,
and the Hospital Day Association, which serves the
disabled.
In a public-private partnership affecting the delivery
of health care nationally, CDS is partnering with the
Arab African International Bank and Cairo University
Specialized Pediatrics Hospital, investing in the hospital’s
staff and expansion plans. The hospital serves
an average of 2,500 patients weekly and is one of the
largest health care providers for Egyptian children. For
its part, the bank is providing the majority of financing
for the project; while CDS is upgrading nursing skills
and simultaneously creating a core of well-qualified
professionals capable of transferring their knowledge. The
plan is for CDS to exit in a year with a sustainable
program in place. Further, CDS is working at
the operational level with the hospital’s administration
to improve management, technical capacities and day-to-day
efficiency. CDS was selected to play this pivotal
role because of its involvement in the Egyptian health
sector since 1991, most particularly because of its
truly remarkable success at enhancing nursing as a
career in Aswan. That project has since expanded
to the Governorates
of Aswan and Qena.
Working with the Egyptian government’s Social Fund
for Development, in turn using World Bank funding for
54 projects, CDS documented the implementation of four
models being tried to increase awareness about population
and reproductive health issues. Using both quantitative
and qualitative methods, including conducting 373 interviews,
CDS clearly defined the characteristic strengths and
weaknesses of each model, determining exactly what created
success and effectiveness. From these lessons learned,
CDS then extracted the basics for an efficient and sustainable
model to address population growth and improve the lives
of rural women of reproductive age, reporting these complex
findings to the government. CDS also examined each
model for the approach most helpful to effective cooperation
among the Ministry of Health and Population, nongovernmental
organizations and local communities—the capacity-building
part of the project.
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