Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies

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Introduction

Although peace, security and democracy in the Middle East have become issues of global importance, the issue of development in particular is especially of vital importance to the people of the region. Their scarce resources, both human and material, have been wasted over the last half century because of protracted conflicts, mismanagement and corruption. The UNDP Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) 2002 noted the dire results of all of these ailments. The report cited three chronic deficiencies which contributed to the Arab world's lagging behind all major regions in the face of global change.

Political prescriptions for the Middle East would fall short in achieving their intended objectives if they are not accompanied by a significant level of domestic human development. At the core of the three deficiencies noted by the AHDR report in freedom and democracy; in gender equality; and in knowledge and technologywe, at ICDS, believe that the gender issue must take priority. It is precisely in promoting gender equality that Arab societies will have to face its own outmoded values and practices; and in so doing, it will remove many of the non-economic obstacles to overall development. In other words, by focusing on the issue of gender we believe a sustainable development could be initiated.

An Integrated Developmental Approach to Women

A few years before ICDS was shut down, it experimented with an integrated approach to women's development. It targeted the poorest of the poor among women in two communities in Egypt , one urban (Imbaba-Giza) and one rural (the village of Beddin- Dakahleyya ). The experiment started by offering literacy classes to young girls and women who have never gone to school. After their illiteracy was eliminated, they were given the opportunity to consider any small or micro enterprise that they may have dreamt of starting if they had the capital. Those who showed seriousness and promise were given a short-training course in doing simple feasibility studies and book-keeping of micro enterprises. Those who completed their literacy course and the micro enterprises course were given small loans ranging from the equivalent of US$ 100 to US$ 500 to implement the enterprise of their choice. The individuals successful in paying back their loans were given larger loans for further expansion.

The ICDS researchers managing this section of the program followed the same procedures that were developed by the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh with nearly the same results; i.e., over 95 percent succeeded in paying back their loans. We went beyond micro enterprises to a reproductive health component. This entailed consciousness raising of young unwed girls about the value of delayed marriage, and for newly weds the importance of family planning and spacing pregnancies at 3 to 4 year intervals. A pilot program was also introduced to combat female genital mutilation (FGM), but due to deeply entrenched archaic customs, it was not as successful as the micro enterprise project.

Women who succeeded in the first three components of the program were encouraged to take interest in public issues by registering as voters and participating in local and national elections. Taking this step made potential candidates seek their votes and show greater interest in providing their community with services and other benefits, including those that target women. In other words, through this last componentthe concept of empowerment was fully operational in those two poor communities.

Expanding a Pilot Experiment into a Sustainable Program

Despite the closure of Ibn Khaldun for three years (from June 2000 to June 2003), much of what we began in the two above mentioned communities continued to survive albeit with less vigor. But as soon as members of the two communities heard of the re-opening of ICDS, they requested to be revisited by the Center. The Center is looking forward to implementing further measures of development there.

We are proposing to revive and consolidate the work which we already began several years ago in the two aforementioned communities. More important, we planover the next three yearsto expand the program to as many as twenty new communities, ten urban and ten rural. We intend to rely increasingly on selected members of beneficiaries from the two original communities as potential trainers and implementers of the program in the new communities. Needless to say, the proper evaluation of the old as well as the new initiatives will be built into the new development project.