Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmy met with Jonathan Pershing, the US deputy director for the office of energy policy, in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss preparations for the upcoming 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22).
Pershing is currently leading a US delegation for a short visit to Cairo, during which they also met with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
During the meeting, Fahmy and Pershing discussed climate change issues and Egypt’s role in preparing for Africa’s negotiations, according to an official statement by the ministry.
Pershing expressed the US’s interest in collaborating with Egypt to advance its air quality. Fahmy said that funding the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) is the top priority for African countries.
“The next COP22 talks are crucial as they will decide the funding issue for developing countries in Africa to mitigate and adapt to climate change,” Fahmy said. “This requires a shared responsibility from all countries.”
Highlighting a stance that sees climate change effects for Africa as asymmetrical to the developed north, Egypt advocates for the necessity of capacity building and technology transfer.
Egypt has been pushing for the implementation of the AREI since the COP21 in Paris, believing it will have a considerable impact on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on the continent. The AREI will, however, require huge funding in order to be activated.
In December 2015, United Nations member states signed an agreement that pledged to keep temperature rise well below 2C by the year 2100. The year 2015, the warmest year in history, witnessed a 1.8C increase in the Earth’s temperature.
Many countries still need further legislative measures and parliamentary votes to formally ratify the Paris agreement, including China—one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. China began to review the agreement on Monday ahead of its formal ratification.
The COP22, which will be held in Marrakesh, Morocco in mid-November, will discuss potential ways of enforcing the Paris agreement among other items.
The early morning silence in the upscale neighbourhood of Heliopolis was broken by the bitter screaming voice of a senior woman lying in the middle of a small garden. No one could tell why she was screaming. But after a few minutes she started yelling unintelligibly at an invisible someone—which clearly conveyed to those who could see her that she was a woman with a mental disorder.
This woman was known by neighbours and local street vendors as “the crazy woman”. Using old pieces of cloth, she creates a small corner for herself to lie under the shadow of trees, away from the hustle and bustle of the street. However, despite keeping her distance, passersby usually assault her.
Mental health patients in Egypt were not given any rights in terms of their admission, exit, or treatment under the old version of the mental health law. Admission regulations at public hospitals were very blurry, turning mental health hospitals into a place where patients were exiled and admitted for lengthy durations amid lack of oversight mechanisms.
The situation of mental health patients in Egypt has been part of a global issue. In September 2015, the United Nations decided to include, for the first time, the promotion of mental health and well-being as part of its global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
“Finally these diseases are getting the attention they deserve,” World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Margret Chan said, alluding that mental health is very poorly resourced.
This move gained new ground in Egypt. In October 2015, the mental health secretariat launched a new campaign entitled: “Now is the time to know about mental diseases”. The campaign aims to spread awareness about mental health and remove the social stigma towards people with mental health problems.
Hundreds of recovered mental health patients in Egypt cannot check out of hospitals due to this stigma. Formerly a residential royal palace, the Abbasiya hospital, with its colourful, old buildings and vast green spaces, has become a safe haven for recovered patients to live free from society’s imposed stigma.
Hundreds of recovered mental health patients in Egypt cannot check out of hospitals due to soceital stigma. (Photo by Asmaa Gamal)
Abandoned dreams
Jihan Bahey El-Din, 43, cannot remember why she was admitted to Abbasiya hospital, but as she started to recover she told Daily News Egypt that her sister was the one who admitted her.
Both her parents are dead. She said she used to live with her sister and husband, but they were never on good terms. “We used to fight all the time. I used to fear everything, and panic a lot.”
“One day after a big fight, she brought me here to the hospital. I used to take a lot of medicine in the first year,” Jihan said about her admission to the hospital five years ago.
When Jihan’s condition got better, she left the hospital on her own. According to the 2009 law, mental patients have the right to leave when they recover. The average recovery duration is estimated to be six months, depending on the case, according to Abbasiya hospital spokesperson Hisham Maged.
“When I went back home, my sister tricked me and told me, ‘we are going back to the hospital to bring you some medicine’, and then I found myself here again,” Jihan said.
Having lost hope in the idea of returning home, Jihan decided to make the best of her stay at the hospital. “I went to the theatre during first year. Coincidently, the director was looking for girls to perform in a new play so I joined immediately.”
According to Jihan, it has been a beneficial experience and she has learned to communicate better with others. Jihan, who could not complete her education following primary school, also enrolled herself in a computer course at the hospital, but she is still hoping to go back home one day.
These learning activities at Abbasiya become an essential activity for many other patients like Jihan who try to kill time at the hospital.
Alaa Khalil, a computer programmer who recently recovered from schizophrenia, realised his potential for singing during his stay at Abbasiya after participating in a number of sketches. While Alaa still has some difficulty speaking, he possesses a unique singing talent and hopes to take it to a more advanced level outside the hospital.
“The doctors said I recovered, but I am still afraid of dealing with people and blending in with others once again,” he told Daily News Egypt.
During the breaks from rehearsals, Alaa is often seen sitting alone outside the hall looking over a spacious garden and turning his back to the theatre’s gate.
“I like the hospital but … I want to be a famous singer,” he said.
Alaa realised his potential for singing during his stay at Abbasiya after participating in a number of sketches. (Photo by Asmaa Gamal)
Utopian law, unlikely enforcement
In 2009, Egypt issued a new mental health law. Despite progressive amendments to the mental health conditions, many obstacles still lie ahead for the implementation of the law.
One of the many positive items the new Mental Health law brought was a thorough outline for regulating the admission and release of mental patients in a way that empowers them to enjoy the right of medical treatment or to opt out of it if it is proven they do not need it. This came in addition to the establishment of an oversight body called the National Council for Mental Health (NCMH) to ensure adherence to the law in all public and private hospitals.
In Article 14, the law specifies certain people who are allowed to refer a mental patient for admission to hospitals. However, this process should not exceed more than 48 hours and is used only to examine the case and determine whether admission is required or not.
In all other cases, mental patients are generally not allowed to stay at a hospital for more than a week without undergoing two separate examinations by the NCMH and independent experts.
Furthermore, the law redefined mental illness, gave patients the right to leave hospitals on their own when they recover, and banned doctors from giving patients any kind of treatments without their consent.
There was huge debate around those amendments when they first came out as some believed it is not reasonable to allow mental patients, who may not be aware enough about their state or treatment, to make decisions regarding admission to, exit from, or treatment within hospitals.
After seven years of working under the new law, public mental hospitals are struggling to fill some voids in the law.
“At least 30% of the patients here in Abbasiya recovered but they have no place to go,” Abbasiya hospital spokesperson Hisham Maged told Daily News Egypt.
In October 2015, the mental health secretariat launched a new campaign to spread awareness on mental health issues. (Photo Public Domain)
Painfully aware that their case will deteriorate if they do not find adequate supervision, the hospital agrees to extend their stay after recovery. The hospital may provide job opportunities for some people on a case-by-case basis, while some elderly patients are referred to shelters.
He added: “The families refuse to take their patients back, and many already changed their contact information and never visit. Even when a patient dies we are not able to inform their families; they are buried in the charity graves.”
According to Maged, this is not only a societal problem, but also constitutes a burden on the hospital’s capacity. “Some newcomers need to be admitted but there are not enough beds.”
There are some other items in the law that proved to be inapplicable, according to the NCMH.
Dalal Abdel Wahab, executive director at NCMH, told Daily News Egypt that there is a significant shortage of psychiatrists. She mentioned the one article in particular that stipulates examination of mental patients within 48 hours as inapplicable in remote cities where there are almost no psychiatrists.
The admission rate at public hospitals sharply declined from 2014 to 2015 according to the NCMH annual figures. In 2015, only 8,709 patients voluntarily entered mental hospitals compared to 18,095 in 2014. Similarly, 8,940 patients were forcibly admitted in 2015 compared to 10,613 in 2014.
A majority of the cases examined at the hospital are accepted for admission. In 2015, 952 cases were rejected out of a total of 18,950 cases at both private and public hospitals, according to the NCMH report.
‘Mental patients are demonised’
Prejudiced attitudes towards people with mental illness are related to deeply-rooted misconceptions towards the nature of mental diseases. The way people with mental illnesses are portrayed in the media and cinema as ugly looking people with torn clothes and dirty hair convey misperceptions that mental patients are somehow repulsive human beings.
Ahmed Salah, psychiatrist and former resident doctor at Abbasiya hospital, told Daily News Egypt that there is a huge lack of awareness towards mental disorders even among the highly educated. He estimated the number of patients who recover from Abbasiya yet remain in it could be up to 60% of patients.
“Mental illness is still often perceived as an act of Satan or a curse from God so patients shall be put in solitude for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Salah illustrated that mental disorders are similar to physical ones. “Nobody recovers completely from a mental disorder, just like high blood pressure patients.” He continued, “With adequate medical treatment and supervision, symptoms and effects of the disease become more dulled and almost non-existent.”
Stress, phobia, depression, all fall under the pillar of mental illness and are very common, Salah further noted. But most of the patients who come to Abbasiya were left for a long time without treatment until their case got complicated. Similarly, he concluded, “patients who recovered in Abbasiya must find adequate residence and supervision when they go out to avoid more serious setbacks.”
The Doctors Syndicate has launched a week-long online campaign to push for the implementation of the court decision that would raise doctors’ compensation up to EGP 1,000 in case of contracting infections on the job.
In November 2015, the Administrative Court of the State Council decided to raise the infections compensation to EGP 1,000 instead of only EGP 19, following the death of many doctors who contracted serious infections at work.
The cabinet issued an appeal against the verdict, claiming that the allocated budget is insufficient for the compensation increased. However, the court rejected the appeal in early June.
Nevertheless, as of yet, the cabinet has still not increased doctors’ compensation.
Using the hashtag “Implement the Infections Compensation Increase”, doctors exposed their risk of contracting infections during work and expressed how crucial the infection compensation is to ensure their right to medical treatment.
Doctors are at risk of contracting infections on a daily basis due to their direct exposure to patients and the poor conditions in Egypt’s hospitals. According to the Doctors Syndicate secretary general Mona Mina, doctors are most at risk from hepatitis C, respiratory, and bacterial diseases.
Over the past three years, at least six doctors have died due to contracting an infection in their line of work. This increase in compensation is not expected to prevent the occurrence of infections but rather to give doctors access to adequate healthcare.
According to member of the board at the Doctors Syndicate Hany Mehany, doctors, especially surgeons, receive the lowest rate of compensation compared to employees in other sectors who get compensated for working in less dangerous conditions.
The campaign also highlighted specific cases of doctors who died due to infections. The list included six doctors who died over the past three years. Among them was Ahmed Abdel Latif who died in December 2013 due to a deadly infection from a ventilator machine in the intensive care unit. The latest case occurred in November 2015, as Dalia Mehrez died of meningitis in Ismailia while working in a medical caravan.
Mehrez’s death sparked widespread outrage from doctors and was followed by the court verdict to raise their compensation.
Since the court verdict, the syndicate had sent several letters and requests on different dates to the cabinet and presidency in order seeking an increase in compensation, but there has been no response so far.
The Health Ministry was not available for comment on the matter at the time of publishing.
Article 100 of the Constitution states that refraining from implementing court decisions is punishable—the penalties for which are jail time and expulsion from one’s position.
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) tried to return attention to the plight of Kowla villagers in Sohag through a research paper published Wednesday documenting the hardships of the villagers.
The New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) issued in September 2015 a tender to launch the “New Akhmim City”, with an investment value of EGP 89m, as part of a comprehensive plan to renovate Upper Egyptian cities.
In their research, ECESR met with a group of villagers from Kowla as well as experts and advocates on the issue to document how the establishment of New Akhmim City would affect the lives of villagers.
Some of the construction works of New Akhmim City already started removing lands and infrastructure that were cultivated by Kowla villagers. The NUCA also impugned the ownership of villagers to those fields.
“I have documents from the agricultural reforms authority since 1982 that proves my ownership to this land. I have been paying its rent,” one of the villagers told ECESR in January.
About 500 acres of desert land has been cultivated by Kowla villagers, according to the study, without any help from the government.
Eighty-four families were affected by the decision and it is expected to affect upwards to 1,000 individuals. Some families’ lives grew far worse after the evacuations, and many others fled and were persecuted after the district municipal authority filed reports against them.
Only 118 acres were acknowledged by the government. More than 300 acres were rented by farmers who failed to prove their ownership of the land as they used to pay rent to the Agricultural Reforms Authority since they could not afford to buy it.
Sohag is ranked among the areas with the highest rates of poverty—66% of its citizens are living below the poverty line, according to 2015 figures.
The decision to remove lands cultivated by villagers in Kowla contradicts the state’s propagated development aspirations and announced plans to cultivate the desert.
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi inaugurated a 1.5m acre reclamation project in December 2015, which aims to increase Egypt’s actual agricultural land by 20% outside the Delta region.
Egypt ranked first among countries with the largest rate of desertification of green fields, according to a 2015 UN report.
Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aaty said that Egypt is facing an acute water shortage crisis, regardless of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam’s (GERD) construction.
Abdel Aaty said in an interview on private TV channel Al-Hayat that the crisis is mainly triggered by the decreasing individual share of water stemming from the increasing population throughout the years.
“Egyptians consume much more water than their share in the Nile water,” he said. “Egypt consumes about 80bn cubic metres a year, and its annual share is only 55bn cubic metres.”
The deficit is filled by using other water resources, such as rains in the North Coast, groundwater, and the reuse of agriculture waste water, according to Abdel Aaty.
Regarding the construction of GERD, which is about 70% complete, he noted that there is no need to worry about water issues in Egypt, because there are simulation models for all dams constructed on the Nile.
The cabinet is currently preparing an alternative agricultural plan to adjust to the water shortage.
The new strategy bans the export of rice and limits the space of rice fields to 700,000 acres, instead of 1.1 million acres, limiting agriculture’s water consumption. The strategy also aims to increase the number of plastic greenhouse fields, treat sewage water, and develop field irrigation tools to increase water efficiency.
Sohag governor Ayman Abdel Moneim, along with the city’s security director, visited Sohag public hospital on Tuesday, following an assault on two of its doctors, the Doctors Syndicate said in an official statement.
Both officials apologised to the doctors and said security measures to protect public hospitals will increase.
This is the second assault against doctors in Sohag in less than a week. A family member of a patient assaulted two doctors on Monday, leading to injuries. The doctors had failed to rescue the patient who had arrived at the hospital in a critical condition.
Assaults on doctors by family members of patients have been increasing in public hospitals across different cities, as there is often little or no accountability on the assaulters.
Ihab Al-Taher, board member at the Doctors Syndicate, told Daily News Egypt that this was not merely a security issue. “All state authorities are involved in the prevalence of such assaults,” he stated.
Most of those assaults occur due to the lack of medical equipment or shortage of beds in public hospitals, which leads to the patients’ families assaulting doctors, according to Al-Taher. However, the government is responsible for increasing the state budget allocation for the health sector, he said.
Following the infamous attack against two doctors at Al-Matariya hospital by two low-ranking policemen in February, the Doctors Syndicate sent a bill to the parliament’s Health Committee, calling for the strengthening of the penalty against assaults on doctors in April.
“So far, the parliament did not respond and no progress has been made in reviewing the bill,” Al-Taher said.
He further noted that the frequency of those assaults has a direct negative impact on providing healthcare, and warned that it might lead to more hospitals shutting down.
Last Tuesday, another family assaulted a doctor due to the unavailability of beds in the intensive care unit at Sohag hospital. The doctor sustained multiple injuries, including brain shudder and loss of eyesight.
Earlier in August, a misdemeanour court in Baheira sentenced a citizen who assaulted a doctor last December to six months in prison—the first verdict of its kind—and a fine of EGP 500, with a bail of EGP 200.
Seventeen fishermen were reportedly detained near the port of Benghazi on Monday as they tried to enter the port.
The Libyan naval authorities have yet to disclose the names of those detained as well as the name of the boat. The reasons as to why the ship approached the port are also still unclear, as clashes between the Libyan army and militants continue.
Head of the Fishermen’s Syndicate in Kafr Al-Sheikh Ahmed Nassar could not confirm nor deny the news, but he told Daily News Egypt that attempts to confirm the incident are ongoing.
Nassar, however, said such incidents have happened frequently over the past two years, during which dozens of fishermen have drowned, were detained, or went missing.
He said there are many reasons that may trigger fishermen to go to nearby ports, but the most significant is the huge deterioration of fisheries in Egypt. “There needs to be comprehensive reform for the Egyptian shores,” he said, to ensure self-sufficiency for fishing in Egypt.
A fishing boat sank in Sudanese territorial waters on 30 January, carrying 14 people. Two were rescued while one body was retrieved and 11 people remain missing.
Meanwhile, more fishermen have been detained for trespassing in the territorial waters of Libya and Tunisia.
Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aaty continued his meetings with World Bank representatives in Washington DC, along with his counterparts from Ethiopia and Sudan.
The visit included a tour of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and focused on sharing experiences about building dams in different countries, managing the dams’ flow, and stored water.
The World Bank had earlier invited the ministers of the three countries to this meeting, in a bid to facilitate talks between them. The initiative comes as 70% of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) construction is completed.
The Colorado River is considered the main river located in the southwest of the United States and the Northwest of Mexico. It’s 1,450 miles long and is 637 sqm, passing by a severely drought area in seven states in the US and two Mexican cities.
The GERD has strained relations between Ethiopia and Egypt since construction began in 2011, with relations reaching their lowest point in 2013.
In early June, Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said it is finalising the deals with the consulting agencies to assess the impact of the GERD. In December, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan signed the Khartoum Document, addressing ways to enforce and execute the declaration of principles.
Nader Nour El-Din, water resources professor at Cairo University, previously told Daily News Egypt that “those consulting studies are completely useless”, stating that the studies are expected to take an average of 17 months, while the GERD’s completion is scheduled for October 2017. The results of these studies are also non-binding.
Habi Center for Environmental Rights has sent forth a letter to the Environment Ministry supporting complaints from Helwan residents against increasing emissions of cement factories.
The centre has previously sent letters to the ministry requesting it disclose on its website the environmental impact assessment studies of the cement factories, making them available and accessible for all citizens.
According to Habi this is particularly important after the transfer of energy from natural gas to alternative fuels of waste and coal.
Ahmed Abo El-Seoud, head of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), told Daily News Egypt those studies should not be made public and are considered property of the ministry.
“Those studies are too technical for the public to understand,” he said. “However, the minister can publish their executive summary only.”
However, those summaries were never published on the ministry’s website.
Radwa Abdel Fattah, a researcher at Habi, explained to Daily News Egypt that hiding this information raises suspicion and doubt on the accountability systems put in place for the factories, especially with the increasing number of complaints from residents about the factories’ emissions.
“This data needs to be public to avoid potential manipulations,” she said. “Harmed residents have the right to know the information, and there are independent experts who can review the studies.”
The centre is calling on the ministry to disclose regularly on its website documents related to fines imposed on factories, in a way to pressure the factories to decrease violations and amend its work according to the country’s legal environmental standards.
Habi’s requests also called on factories to disclose their studies related to any changes or new constructions made inside the factory as well as their meetings with residents.
The ministry responded once to Habi’s statements in early June, saying that it cannot disclose the environmental assessment studies, but it may publish an executive summary of those studies, and the meetings with residents. But so far nothing was published yet.
Meanwhile, the ministry said in an official statement on Monday that it is currently holding several meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and some governors to curb waves of hazardous emissions. Regarding heavy industries, the ministry plans to obligate factories to undertake regulatory procedures to cut down industrial waste and emissions.
The statement also said that the ministry plans to conduct inspection visits at those factories at night—when most of the emissions are reported by citizens.
The Ministry of Agriculture debunked reported statements that the cabinet is currently preparing an alternative agricultural plan to adjust to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) inauguration.
The new strategy bans the export of rice and limits the space of rice fields to 700,000 acres instead of 1.1 million acres, limiting agriculture’s water consumption. The strategy also aims to increase the number of plastic greenhouse fields, treat sewage water, and develop field irrigation tools to increase water efficiency.
Ministry spokesperson, Eid Hawash, told Daily News Egypt that the plan has nothing to do with the GERD, but that it rather focuses on averting effects of the current water shortage crisis, as well as effects of climate change.
“Egypt’s water share used to be 55.5 billion cubic metres (BCM)/year for only 20 million citizens. Now, after population rates increased throughout the years, the water share has not increased,” he said.
According to Hawash, this share will not be affected by the GERD construction, which will be complete by October 2017. However, he said the ministry is currently undertaking a set of pre-emptive measures, with the cabinet’s plan to ban rice planting among them.
“Exporting rice means exporting water,” he illustrated, noting that this also applies for sugar cane, a highly water-consuming plant. “There is a wide gap between consumption and production rates,” Hawash further highlighted.
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi mandated that the Minister of Agriculture head a governmental delegation from different ministries to work on a new national mega project for the establishment of 100,000 plastic greenhouses. The delegation will reportedly visit European countries to gain the know-how of cultivating these houses.
Egypt is one of the world’s largest food importers, according to a 2014 study by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. By the year 2020, water requirements will most likely increase by 20% (15 BCM/year). The agricultural imports bill in the country has rapidly increased putting a substantial burden on the country’s foreign exchange resources.
Climate changes are one of the main threats affecting agricultural crops and overall food security in Egypt and the MENA region. Maize, rice, and wheat are among the top crops to be affected by severe climate change in Egypt, according to a study by United States Aid in 2013.
