The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies
(ICDS) is a non- governmental professional institution, registered
in Cairo since 1988 as a limited liability civil company (license no. 3044).
Its headquarters is located in Mokattam Hills.
ICDS has its own research, advocacy, and development
programs, but it also conducts commissioned research, provides consultation
and training services to governmental and non-governmental organizations on
issues of public policy. The Center carries out supportive activities related
to its objectives, including organizing seminars, conferences and the publication
and dissemination of information.
ICDS seeks to become a focal point for national
and regional NGOs sharing its mission. Facilities at the Center include a specialized
library, computerized data banks, an information system and conferences room
for hosting small to medium-size seminars (up to 50 persons).
GOVERNANCE AND FUNDING
ICDS is governed by Board of Trustees nominated by the researchers
and fellows of ICDS from among Egypt's prominent public figures.
The board sets general policy for the Center and monitors its programs. The
day-to-day activities of ICDS are managed by an executive director
and an administrative committee.
ICDS started with seed money donated by the founder Dr. Saad
Eddin Ibrahim, from several monetary awards which he obtained in the 1980s.
For recurrent expenditures, ICDS relies on grants, contracts,
subscriptions and sales of its publications. ICDS donors have
included Arab, European and American foundations. ICDS pays
taxes annually on any surplus (between revenues and expenditures) since transparency
is one of its basic operating principles. ICDS publishes its
annual financial reports, as well as the names of all its donors.
In fifteen years since its establishment in 1988, ICDS has
undertaken more than 75 research projects, organized over 150 conferences, seminars
and workshops, provided consultations to a number of prominent Egyptian, Arab
and International organizations.
RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY PROGRAMS
ICDS has distinguished itself through quality research and
effective advocacy around issues deemed relevant to Egypt and the Arab world.
ICDS pioneered many of these programs, typically beginning
with activities in Egypt, and then branching out to other countries of the Arab
World. In future, the Center will concentrate its efforts in the following areas:
1. CIVIL
SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIZATION (CSD)
This is the flagship program of ICDS
and bears the title of its monthly newsletter in English and Arabic, and one
of its regular annual reports. Over the years, ICDS has accumulated
a database, published more than thirty books and organized several conferences
and seminars on the subject. The Center believes that true democracy begins
with informed and participating citizens. Toward that end it holds weekly
open forum discussions and periodic training for young people, NGO leaders
and governmental officials.
Among its past programs were training in human rights reporting, helping women
to engage in the electoral process, and coordination of citizen training in
election monitoring. Through Election Action Research (EAR) young Egyptians
were given skills for monitoring the 1995 Egyptian Parliamentary elections,
the first Palestine presidential and legislative elections (January 1996),
and ICDS joined with other Egyptian NGOs to form the Independent
Commission for Election Review (ICER). Other projects have included Political
Education and Electoral Rights (PEER) and formation of the League of Egyptian
Women Voters (HODA). Projects were carried out in cooperation with other Arab
NGOs, and with support from the European Commission, Ford Foundation, Konrad
Adenauer Stiftung, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED). Starting mid 2003 ICDS revived the weekly
Ibn Khaldun Forum (Al Ruwaq).
2. SECTS,
ETHNIC AND MINORITY GROUPS (SEMG)
Ethnicity and minorities were taboo subjects in much
of the Arab World when ICDS began research and publication
on these topics in 1992. The authoritative, 1000 page volume bearing the program
title, and a subsequent 1994 conference on the UN Declaration on Minority
Rights and People (of the Arab World and The Middle East) triggered one of
the most passionate debates in the Arab World in recent memory. Subsequent
work in various projects has been carried out in cooperation with local minority
organizations, as well as the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG), the
UN, and the European Union (EU). ICDS focused attention,
supported, and monitored minorities participation in recent elections in
Egypt, Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab World.
3. GENDER
AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
ICDS has focused its research and
advocacy on women in public life. As forcefully noted in the recent UNDP Human
Development Report, sustainable development has to be fully participatory.
Women's representation in NGOs, local and national councils and other arenas
of public life is an indicator of such development. Past projects included
organizing Egyptian and Arab women parliamentarians and other women's NGOs
for participation in the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD), the 1995 Copenhagen Social Development Summit, and
the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women. Out of these and similar
activities, and in cooperation with other ICDS programs,
the League of Egyptian Women Voters (HODA) was initiated in 1996. These activities
were carried out with Egyptian NGO's and international organizations, including
Freidrich Ebert Stiftung, EZE, and the Bangladesh Grameen Bank.
A THREE-YEAR FORCED SUSPENSION
On the night of June 30th 2000, the founder of the Center and 27 of its researchers
and associates were arrested, detained for several weeks, interrogated, indicted
and tried twice before state security courts. They were sentenced to various
prison terms ranging from one to seven years of hard labor. After serving about
15 months of these sentences, all were released when Egypt's highest Court of
Cassation over-ruled the lower courts. The Court acquitted the defendants of
all charges and asserted the Center's constitutional rights to conduct research,
receive grants and freely publish at home and abroad. This historical ruling
was a vindication of the Ibn Khaldun Center and, more importantly, a forceful
victory for Civil Society in Egypt. The Center reopened with a series of public
discussions about the future on June 30th 2003.
ICDS is named after the great Arab thinker Abdel-Rahman Ibn
Khaldun (1332-1406), who was the founder of Arab Social Science. Ibn Khaldun's
travels and public service in several Arab countries (what is now Tunisia, Morocco,
Andalusia, Egypt, the Higaz and Syria) allowed this outstanding intellectual
to provide major creative insight into both the theoretical and applied aspects
of social science. This is amply demonstrated in his famous study Al-Moqademah,
which is considered a classic authoritative work on society and the state.
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