Conflicting Objectives in the Egyptian-American Aid Relationship

Egypt has been and continues to be one of the major recipients of development assistance in the third world, yet very little effort has been made to assess the overall impact of this aid on Egypt A symposium was held on December 10th and 11th, 1983 in Oriental Hall at the American University in Cairo, organized by Cairo Papers in Social Science with financial support from the Cairo Office of the Ford Foundation. Egyptian government ministers, officials from representative donors and scholars experienced in development were invited to make formal presentations to the symposium. The essays presented in this issue were all presented at the symposiumhttps://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1900/thumbnail.jp

Capacity building and policy coordination strategies

Meeting: Food Security & Vulnerability: Priority Research Themes for Policy Influence and Impact: IDRC Workshop, 27 November, 2008, Cairo, E

The pharmaceutical industry in Egypt.

This thesis is an assessment of the performance of the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry in the context of am international market for drugs which is dominated by the operation of multinational firms. Chapter I begins with an analysis of the determinants of demand for drugs, followed by a definition of terms and a classification of pharmaceutical products according to their therapeutic usage and the technical processes involved in their manufacture. Section 3 of Chapter 1 describes the structure of the international market for drugs, exploring the major factors responsible for a significant rate of concentration in the industry, an excessive amount of expenditure on innovations and promotion, and unreasonably high prices. Section 4 of Chapter I singles out the specific problems concerning devleloping countries in their acquisition of drugs and examines the arguments so far presented on the subject. Chapter II traces the development of the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry from its early start in a free enterprise environment and through the 1950s when government control gradually became total. Section 1 of Chapter III describes the changing pattern of supply of drugs by multinational firms in various markets. This is followed in Section 2 by a detailed analysis of the operation of multinational firms in Egypt, with special emphasis on their comparative gain from particular forms of investment. Section 3 of Chapter III identifies the costs and benefits derived by the Egyptian economy from the operation of multinational pharmaceutical firms, with a quantitative judgement of figures obtained for the two major kinds of foreign operations in Egypt: subsidiaries and license agreements. Chapter IV gives an assessment of the performance of the nationalised domestic sector of the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry over the period 1960 to 1970/71, using indices for production, value added and profits as basic indicators. The price structure for drugs is also examined for its influence on the profitability of domestic firms and on the production indices for the industry. In Section 3 of Chapter IV the policy of GOPCA, the centralised government body in control of the Egyptian market for drugs, is assessed for its influence on the present and future growth of the industry. Section 4 of Chapter IV is devoted to a close study of the problems which the industry has experienced with backward integration, as portrayed in the operation of the primary producing pharmaceutical chemicals plant, El Nasr. Chapter V summarises the results of this study

State-Business Relations and Investment in Egypt

This study shows that informal relationships between key policymakers and investors have played an important role in raising levels of investment and fostering economic growth. Comparative observations show that common social roots and common professional background facilitate the emergence of an effective public-private growth alliance but the only necessary conditions are common interest and common understanding of the problems to be solved. The comparative research on two old and two new sectors shows in detail how informal relationships have emerged and how they have made an impact but it warns against overstating their investment-enhancing role. Effective relationships between policymakers and investors – abbreviated to CIPI – are not the direct cause of increases in investment but can play a critical role in unleashing the profit potential of specific sectors. Research on the food industry shows how CIPI helped to overcome supply constraints and political obstacles in decision-making. Research on the communications industry shows how CIPI helped Egypt to overcome initial barriers to entry and establish a new industry virtually from scratch. While the gains were sometimes appropriated by a few actors, the research shows that exclusive relationships can have inclusive effects, depending on how the private sector is organised. Quantitative examination of whether CIPI had an enduring investment-enhancing effect was inconclusive. There is no doubt however that the CIPI was an effective transitional arrangement. It helped investors to overcome barriers to economic growth, it helped policymakers to overcome deficiencies in their own government agencies and it helped both sides to work together in establishing new sectorspecific rules and improving the general regulatory framework. The general lesson from this research is that such transitional arrangements deserve more attention, both to gain a better understanding of the political economy of investment and growth and to make research more relevant for policy

Heba Handoussa Oral History

Heba Handoussa, a 1966 graduate of The American University in Cairo, was a faculty member teaching economics from 1977 to 1993, and served as Vice Provost in the early 1990s. Growing up in a prominent family (her father a renowned physician who treated Umm Kulthum, a friend of the family, and her mother from an elite background), Handoussa describes aspects of the household like language, recreation, neighbors, and servants (like her Slovenian nanny). She recalls their farm in the Delta and how her family managed to avoid the financial ruin that came to others due to Nasser-era policies. She points to changes for women in Egypt by sharing stories of female relatives (some who joined Huda Shaarawi in abandoning the face veil) on topics like social interactions, dress, and education; she relates her own experiences attending a French language Catholic nun’s school. Admitted to undergraduate study at AUC in the early 1960s despite modest high school grades, Handoussa recollects faculty she studied with, campus social life, and a student body inclusive of the children of families made poorer by government sequestration but also President Nasser’s daughter. She speaks of her subsequent graduate education in London (and interaction with other foreign students there), and her return to Egypt in the mid-1970s where she worked with the government investment ministry and did part-time teaching at AUC. A full time faculty member from 1977, she provides a sketch of AUC’s Economics, Political Science, and Mass Communication Department at AUC and its leading faculty (with anecdotes about interactions with figures like economist Galal Amin). Faculty issues like unequal treatment and compensation with respect to full-time and part-time faculty and foreign and Egyptian faculty are addressed too. She offers insight into AUC students (whom she socialized with as a young professor), including their academic level (better in later years than when she attended) and career paths (embracing opportunities, like banking, made available due to Sadat era economic infitah). Handoussa discusses her position as Vice Provost from 1990 to 1992), including her goals and responsibilities, such as for research (which gave her insight into the obstacles caused by government bureaucracy). She tells of leaving the Vice Provost position when excluded from senior administrative deliberations. Handoussa gives a detailed account of her post-AUC career, including her role in founding the Economic Research Forum (ERF) for Arab countries in 1993, and her position on the Egyptian parliament’s Shura Council, where she made inquiries into matters like the Toshka desert development project. She also speaks about the part she played in setting up the Egypt Network for Integrated Development supporting Egyptian handicraft makers, especially rural women, drawing on her longstanding interest in local crafts

Employment, Budget Priorities and Microenterprises

There have been several systematic inquiries into the functioning of Egypt’s labor market over the past few decades, and the various approaches and perspectives have reinforced a consensus view in the diagnosis of the country’s labor problems. This paper starts out by noting that beyond the convergence of views on symptoms and causes, much of the availabl