Notes
Slide Show
Outline
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Significance of Report
  • First survey in Egypt to document quantitatively and qualitatively corporate engagement for development


  • Existing and potential partnerships reviewed and assessed.


  • Concrete model presented for future engagement.


  • New role of each sector outlined: government, private sector, and civil society


  • Mapping of proposed future actions.



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Research Methodology & Scope
  • Extensive literature review


  • Quantitative survey: Questionnaire administered to managers in 574 formal private sector companies of various sizes.


  • Qualitative survey: In-depth interviews with managers  in 44 of those companies.


  • Roundtable discussions with members of BEBA, German Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce, American Chamber of Commerce, and Federation of Egyptian Industries.


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Sectors Represented in Sample
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Good Macro Economic Indicators
  • The picture on the macroeconomic level reveals that real GDP growth reached 7.1%


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Which are the areas which still need work?
  • MDG #1 - Poverty and Hunger: The 2005 Egypt Human Development Report shows that in absolute terms and percentages the poor in Egypt have increased.


  • MDG #2: Education: Upper Egypt - a striking overlap between poverty and illiteracy in the governorates of Upper Egypt.


  • MDG #3: Gender: Alarming low female literacy level  (56.2% in 2004).  Women constitute only 23.9% of the total labor force.
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Which are the areas which still need work?
  • MDG #4: The infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) dropped from 30 in 2001 to 22.4 in 2004.  Similarly, the under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) fell from 39.1 in 2001 to 28.6 in 2004.


  • MDG #5: Maternal mortality figures also show an improvement.


  • MDG #6: The battle against bilharzia, and trachoma continues.
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Which are the areas which still need work?
  • MDG #7: Environment: Cairo has 4 of the 30 largest mega slums in the world (2003 UN Report)
  • MDG #8: Partnerships for Development
  • Companies prefer to operate on their own rather than in association  with a wider network of companies
  • Partnerships between NGOs and the private sector are not facilitated by a sufficiently networked NGO sector working sectorally or geographically
  • Regulations restrict NGO networking and coalition building
  • Difficulty in identifying credible partners and projects


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Partnerships
  • Significant finding: the importance of partnerships and neutral brokers to act as intermediaries to facilitate these partnerships.


  • Two-party partnerships
  • Partnerships with universities and schools
  • Partnerships with intermediaries such as business associations
  • Public private partnerships (PPPs), with quasi-governmental agencies or ministries
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Intermediaries – Neutral Brokers
  • Business Associations: ABA, Assiut BA, Sohag BA, Ismailiya BA, Port Said BA, Dakahleya BA, etc.


  • Chambers of Commerce:  Am Cham, German Arab Chamber of Commerce, BEBA, FEI, etc.


  • International NGO’s: Ashoka, Save the Children Foundation (Injaz)


  • PPPs: Egypt Education Initiative


  • UNDP: Global Compact, UN


  • Academia:  Gerhart Center, AUC
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 Forms of Contributions


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Extent and Form of Support: Philanthropic Models
  • Offering and supporting literacy classes.


  • Establishing, renovating and / or equipping hospitals and clinics or specialized medical units within them (e.g. kidney dialysis, neonatal health, X-ray …


  • Distributing meals, financial support during religious occasions such as Ramadan and other feasts.


  • Organizing health campaigns, vaccination programs.


  • Building mosques and churches which support community development centers where basic services (education, health, computers, vocational training, culture and arts) are offered at nominal fees.


  • Establishing charitable foundations.
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 Investing in the Base of the Pyramid
  • Village adoption schemes involving range of services


  • Interest-free and micro loans to employees but sometimes geared specifically towards women


  • Specialized banking and other products for poorer customers, such as low-cost, easy installment housing plans which do not require down payments


  • Water, sanitation and electricity infrastructure for poor areas
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 Investing in the Base of the Pyramid
  • Promoting and marketing local crafts.


  • Creating environmentally sustainable businesses for the underprivileged.
  • Providing knowledge and expertise to initiate and support socially sustainable agricultural, feeding, and food development programs
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Case Studies: National & International
  • Corporations: Vodafone, P&G, Unilever, Emak Academy, Mansour Group, Mobinil, El Nekheily Brothers.


  • Foundations: Sawiris, Vodafone, Lead, Al Maghraby, The Egyptian Food Bank.


  •  Cemex, Infosys, Casas Bahias.
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Corporate Responsibility Starts in the Firm
  • Internal Compliance: evidence that Egyptian companies with international exposure are beginning to adhere to local laws and seek accreditation to international standards in areas such as labor rights, health and safety and the environment.


  • Eighty-nine percent (89%) of companies surveyed had some form of certification or guarantee for internal compliance to appropriate standards.
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What Should the Private Sector Avoid?

  • Targeting short term ‘projects’ rather than long-term national goals.
  • Implementing outreach that is driven by public relations and image building
  • Focusing on popular themes and sectors to gain publicity and visibility rather than address real human needs.
  • Making un-informed decisions based on  limited knowledge of poverty issues and the development sector
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What Can the Private Sector Do?

  • Assign dedicated CSR executive/personnel to plan and implement well designed initiatives


  • Seek and identify credible partners and projects


  • Plan corporate engagement for the long term seeking to engage the poor in their core business and value chain


  • Work through intermediaries and neutral brokers


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What Should NGO’s Avoid?
  • Compete individually for corporate funds
  • Present development problems in a fragmented manner focusing on narrow, ‘project’ orientations
  • Fall into the PR trap and detract from substantive development objectives
  • Inefficient and non transparent management practices


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What Can NGO’s Do?

  • Collaborate on sectoral and/or regional issues
  • Seek support from the private sector to professionalize NGO sector management capability
  • Inform the private sector about the MDG’s and development work
  • Familiarize corporations about severity of situation and range of options for corporate engagement
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Successful Models
  • Egypt is rich with good models at the grass roots. Models of best practice are ready to go to scale at a national level and in partnership with the private sector


  • Literacy as empowerment  & lifelong learning:  Caritas


  • Micro credit:  Association for the Enhancement and Development of Women (ADEW), Alliance for Arab Women and the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services (CEOSS)
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Successful Models
  • Income-generation linking  learning to earning: The Integrated Care Society, Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE) in Manchiyet Nasser, Bashayer NGO in Helwan, the Association of Upper Egypt (Akhmim and Hagaza)
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Successful Models
  • On site sanitation: CARE, Save the Children and Danish Aid Agency Danida, have had years of experience installing on-site sanitation systems in small, rural communities; proven models of micro-credit for the financing low-cost solutions
  • Women’s Legal Literacy: The Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Aid NGO (CEWLA) and Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) provide legal aid, counseling and advocate for women’s legal causes.


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What Can the Government Do: Governance and Transparency Issues
  • Egypt has signed and ratified major international instruments fighting corruption.  It reinforces their implementation through the Egyptian Penal Code.


  • The Ministry of Investment and Egypt’s UNDP country office have embarked on a challenging program to support transparency and anti-corruption measures by establishing a transparency center at the Ministry.
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What Can the Government Do
    • Co-design strategies with companies, and civil society particularly those related to basic needs of the largest consumer group: the poor
    • Provide direction for pro-development programs, encourage growing role of NGOs and amend legislation to empower them


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What Can the Government Do
    • Identify best practice and replicate / scale up successful models.

    • Provide reliable baseline data on Egypt’s performance on MDGs/ poverty indicators.


    • Give tax breaks and other incentives to private sector partners



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Country Contexts Shape Practice: International Contexts
  • Workers are aware of their rights, state legislation establishes minimum standards for workers in areas such as wages, industrial safety, job security and worker compensation, unemployment and welfare measures are in place and compliance is monitored by both the public and state
  • MNC’s: Brand value, a desire to comply with clear and enforceable laws and consideration of an alert, organized, well-informed public represented by strong, articulate pressure groups


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Country Contexts Shape Practice: Egyptian Context

  • Egyptian companies: operate in an environment where compliance is mostly voluntary;  trade unions not as developed as in other countries legal, labour and environmental infractions are monitored by government agencies working hard to build their capacities;  NGOs unable to access information or use it freely and publicly to the point of monitoring companies’ labour and environmental violations; general context in which companies operate is one where levels of education remain low
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The MDG’s can Become the Main Drivers of Corporate Engagement

  • It will take a very long time for corporate accountability to prevail in Egypt. Meanwhile the 2015 deadline for achieving the MDGs approaches
  • Alternative ways needed to engage companies in the country’s development through effective, indigenous models, tailored to large, medium and small enterprises with the clear and focused purpose of achieving the MDGs
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Working with the Poor is Good for Business
  • The search for new models  springs from the Egyptian private sector’s combined sense of corporate responsibility towards the business and the economic and social condition of the poor
  • The aim will be growing the business while sharing the fruits of prosperity with the masses still living below the poverty line
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Where do the Poor Work?
  • The poor in the non industrialized world own few assets besides their labor, depend on the informal economy for survival.  This economy employs millions of unskilled, semi-skilled, illiterate youths, adults, and children.  The sector has grown exponentially in Egypt



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Where do the Poor Work?
  • If the informal economy provides livelihood opportunities for those that have no other means to survive and youths acquire technical, business and market skills in that market in an unstructured and unplanned manner
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Livelihoods and Learning
  • Would it be possible to link businesses to that sector in a manner that will create a full menu of options for  youths to match their skill set and level of education with livelihood and learning opportunities in the private sector?
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Why Learning Labs?
  • Vocational education and teacher training and methods in Egypt no longer match the speed of labor market developments


  • Private sector partners give generously to educational causes.   Support for such a model would perpetuate this giving but re-direct it towards workplace learning programs, informal workshops, small rural and underserved communities


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Targeting while Partnering
  • The model proposes that businesses do not give randomly but specifically support sectors and learning programs linked to their production, distribution and sourcing, i.e. align core business and community investment


  • The model proposes that formal companies invest in the community of small businesses and workshops which belong to their same sector and link up to them in a core business activity
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SME’s as Learning Labs for Entrepreneurial Livelihoods
  • Synergies between education, youth, work and investment:


  • Livelihoods: The informal economy provides livelihood opportunities for those that have no other means to survive


  • Core Business and Value Chain: Companies align their core business interests by investing in informal sector enterprises in their sourcing and distribution value chains


  • Learning Labs: move away from a centrally driven school-dominated model towards turning informal sector workshops into learning labs linked to the market


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The SME’s as Learning Labs for Entrepreneurial Livelihoods Model
  • Large Firms include SME’s in their value chain, transfer technical know how, specs, quality, business skills, marketing channels, information


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SME’s as Learning Labs for Entrepreneurial Livelihoods Model
  • Curriculum revolves around: technical, vocational, business, life skills, alphabet literacy, health and safety, culture and the arts – i.e. offers whole learning content for unskilled and semi skilled youths within a context of lifelong learning; new opportunities to Learn and Earn in existing businesses and relevant market related occupations.
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New Strategic Beginnings - Targeting
  • A number of foundations, banks, and manufacturing firms have already made strategic choices of the sectors, segments, and regions in which they will operate.
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New Strategic Beginnings - Institution Building
  • A number  of business associations have set up CSR committees (AAIB, Mobinil, Vodafone).


  • Family and corporate foundations have sprung up (Sawiris, Mansour, Lead, Vodafone, Maghraby al Nour).



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New Strategic Beginnings – Core Business Engagement
  • The concept of Social Entrepreneurship has been introduced (SEKEM, Ashoka)


  • Core business engagement models have been recognized internationally (EQI and Sekem)
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New Strategic Beginnings
  • A number of companies are taking into account their wider impacts along the value chain.  They incorporate consideration of how standards can be raised among suppliers, distributors and in the market place.


  • Areas of significant potential in Egypt, e.g. food-processing and small farmers, the hotel industry - community-based handicraft producers; the automotive industry - road safety; food export industry - greater compliance with international health and hygiene standards amongst rural suppliers and in the home.
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Concrete Models are Proposed
  • Contractors and banks extend credit for sanitation and housing needs.





  • Sourcing for Agribusiness from small farmers.



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IT business provides market information to small farmers, female headed households, young entrepreneurs
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Putting the poor at the center of the value chain
  • Consumer Goods sector uses small, low cost entrepreneurial SME’s for distribution








  • Large companies outsource and subcontract small firms
  • Tourism sector promotes indigenous crafts