NGO statistics necessary to measure actual progress
CAIRO: The upcoming release of the 2007 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report on Egypt, which will be officially unveiled this Sunday, will highlight whether Egypt has capitalized on many of the significant gains it had made according its 2005 report.
That report recorded a raft of improvements in a number of areas, such as access to education, drinking water, and the health sector.
From 1994 to 2004, the report states, the combined basic, secondary, and tertiary education enrolment ratio increased from 66.2 percent to 74.2 percent.
Access to drinking water improved considerably as well. Despite the fact that the population has increased from 55.2 million in 1992 to 69 million in 2004, it reads, the population without access to piped water has decreased from 12.1 million in 1992 to 6.1 million in 2004.
Arguably the most significant advancement was made in the area of child mortality. Between 1991 and 2004, the infant mortality rate (children dying before reaching the age of five) dropped from 98,200 to 28,600, representing a decrease of over 60 percent.
Yet in terms of real progress, say the authors of the report, the figures can be somewhat misleading.
Hania El Sholkamy, professor at the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) Social Research Center and one of the report’s authors, warns against getting carried away by statistics. She admits there has been progress in a number of fields but the indicators of such progress are still “very shallow.
The increase in enrolment in schools, for example, only gives the figures for numbers attending, but says nothing of the quality of education, and how schools are coping with the extra bodies.
The same applies with access to drinking water. What needs to be determined here, she says, is how good the water is, and whether it is leading to better health.
“Egypt should not be so badly off in the first place, El Shokalmy told The Daily Star Egypt.
“The country has money, we’ve had free education for a long time and there is a welfare system. That system needs to be better geared towards the needs of the poor.
Another difficulty in discerning the reality of Egypt’s progress is the shortage of independent surveys.
According to Sahar Tawila, professor of statistics at Cairo University and another author of the 2005 and 2007 reports, apart from the national census, there have been no reliable nongovernmental reports since 2005.
Figures and information are coming from government ministries only and thus provide one side of the story. The dearth of NGO statistics means any report will be lacking balance.
One of the issues the 2007 report will raise, says Tawila, is the importance of NGOs, not only in documenting Egypt’s development, but also their role in helping resources reach local communities, and helping these communities best put them to use.
Like El Sholkamy, Tawila says that many of the figures sound more impressive than they are.
“A lot of effort has gone into water and sanitation over recent years, she said.
“But these are still only the basic resources.
