5 discussion seminars in the context of "Citizen's Voice" project

Citizens pay the price for the sins of the local executive bodies and the absence of the local people's council

10/08/2009

Like so many others were not surprised when frequently the news topped the newspapers about the problems of drinking water and irrigation water in many patches of the land of Egypt because we felt that and have lived in it for a long time since the beginning of seminars of "Citizen's Voice" project which still dominate inside discussions the complaints of the citizens of the low quality of basic services in the local units especially drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services.

Maat held recently 5 discussion seminars in the context of "Citizen's Voice" project in several Egyptian governorates, the first one was in El-Agayba village in El-Ayat city 3^rd of August 2009, and the second was in El-Koraymat village in Atfaih city 6^th of August 2009, and in 7^th of August 2009 in El-Ghard village in Armant city in Qena Governorate and another one in Kafr awadallah hegazy village in Zagazig city, and the Fifth was in Kerdasa 8^th of August 2009, these discussion seminars have been in coordination with a group of NGOs in governorates which were Adala, Sahebet El-Galala, El-Mashreq and Key of life foundations. "Citizen's Voice" project is Human Rights and developmental project implemented by Maat in collaboration with the Foundation for the Future (FFF) in a number of governorates of Egypt, in coordination with a group of NGOs in these provinces, and in the context of "Maat" seeking to emphasize the networking work and capacity-building of civil society organizations at the local level as one of the requirements to activate the participation of civil society organizations in the comprehensive local development, the project aims to build a mechanism for communication between citizens and elected members of local people's councils and raising the efficiency and effectiveness of response of the members of the local people's councils, and the development of effective means to identify the needs of citizens.

The seminars which have been held revealed the existence of the pressing local problems of the citizens which faced by government agencies and the executive by type of apathy and indifference justifying it by the vulnerability of the resources and put the blame on the citizens, and the water problems were the common denominator in these seminars in Al-Ayat and Armend and Zagazig where citizens complained about the poor quality of water, and its terms of reference of the drinking and the presence of organisms in it as in Armend, in addition to the total absence of sewerage network in the three regions.

In Atfaih complaints by residents were different relatively as it focused on the lack of a stadium for the exercise of activities for youth, when the people cooperate and prepared a piece of land for this purpose the executive bodies withdraw it and allocation it to build a school, and as if was destined for the local citizens when he wants an essential service is faced by the withdrawal of another service no less important than the first.

In Kerdasa, the main complaints of the citizens were around the bad transport services and the proliferation of some means of transportation which not licensed to operate which resulted in multiple problems affecting the functioning of taste and public morality and affect the liquidity of transportation in the region, besides the problem of poor quality bread and difficult to obtain it experienced by a large segment of the population in Kerdasa, and during the seminar in Kerdasa of forms of national number cards were distributed on 30 female participants free of charge as a contribution from "Maat" to the empowerment of poor women's participation in the community, as the monitoring of local conditions conducted by the Center for the support of citizens, which was founded in the institution partner in the governorate had revealed the need for female citizens to obtain these cards while many of whom do not have the financial capacity of this.

It is clear that the problems of citizens in the provinces and villages and centers of Egypt away from the capital almost similar to a large extent, and directly linked to low performance and efficiency of local government officials and their executive boards, and in light of the absence of local people's councils, which would be mandated to control the operation and functioning of the executive these conditions represent a major challenge from the challenges of decentralization in Egypt.