Startups and Human Capital Management in Egypt: In Search of Decent Jobs

While startups are considered an important potential contributor to Egypt’s economic growth, they encounter myriad challenges that hinder their ability to reach their potential, sustain their market presence, and their capacity to provide decent job opportunities. Challenges include the difficulty of locating and sustaining funding, the complicated legal and regulatory framework that governs them, the conservative social norms and culture, and the lack of data and information regarding market dynamics and existing opportunities. The research findings revealed that many startups face challenges with their Human Capital Management (HCM), in the planning, acquisition, development, or sanction functions. This policy paper examines Egypt’s current startup ecosystem, focusing on human capital management. The main research question is: what is needed for startups in Egypt to thrive, and more importantly, what can be done to help them provide more decent jobs? The paper adopts the “Decent work” framework presented by the ILO which defines a decent job as one that is of acceptable quality in terms of ensuring productivity, social protection, rights, and dialogue

الشركات الناشئة وإدارة رأس المال البشري في مصر: رحلة البحث عن وظائف لائقة

تُعد الشركات الناشئة أحد العناصر التي من الممكن أن تساهم في النمو الاقتصادي في مصر، إلا أنها تواجه تحديات عديدة تعرقل قدرتها على تحقيق إمكاناتها، واستدامتها في السوق، وقدرتها على توفير فرص عمل لائقة. وتشمل التحديات: صعوبة تحديد مصدر التمويل، واستدامته وتعقد الإطار القانوني والتنظيمي الذي ينظمها, بالإضافة إلى المعايير الاجتماعية، والثقافة المحافظة، ونقص البيانات والمعلومات المتعلقة بديناميات السوق والفرص المتاحة. وقد أوضحت نتائج البحث أن العديد من الشركات الناشئة تواجه تحديات في إدارة رأس المال البشري لديها فيما يتعلق بمهام التخطيط ،أو اجتذاب الموارد البشرية أو التطوير ،أو الجزاءات. وتتناول هذه الورقة النظام البيئي الحالي للشركات الناشئة في مصر مع التركيز على إدارة رأس المال البشري، وتطرح الورقة السؤال البحثي الرئيسي التالي: ما هو المطلوب لكي تنجح الشركات الناشئة في مصر، والأهم من ذلك ما الذي يمكن عمله لمساعدتها على توفير وظائف لائقة؟ وتتبنى الورقة إطار العمل اللائق الذي قدمته منظمة العمل الدولية، فيتم تعريف الوظيفة اللائقة وفقا له بأنها وظيفة ذات جودة مقبولة فيما يتعلق بضمان الإنتاجية، والحماية الاجتماعية، وحقوق العمل، والحوار الاجتماعي

To Recycle or Not to Recycle? An Intergenerational Approach to Nuclear Fuel Cycles

This paper approaches the choice between the open and closed nuclear fuel cycles as a matter of intergenerational justice, by revealing the value conflicts in the production of nuclear energy. The closed fuel cycle improve sustainability in terms of the supply certainty of uranium and involves less long-term radiological risks and proliferation concerns. However, it compromises short-term public health and safety and security, due to the separation of plutonium. The trade-offs in nuclear energy are reducible to a chief trade-off between the present and the future. To what extent should we take care of our produced nuclear waste and to what extent should we accept additional risks to the present generation, in order to diminish the exposure of future generation to those risks? The advocates of the open fuel cycle should explain why they are willing to transfer all the risks for a very long period of time (200,000 years) to future generations. In addition, supporters of the closed fuel cycle should underpin their acceptance of additional risks to the present generation and make the actual reduction of risk to the future plausible

Europe, the Arab spring and its aftermath

This contribution was delivered on the occasion of the EUI State of the Union in Florence on 8 May 2015.This intervention was part of the recorded SoU afternoon sessions that took place on 8 May 2015 available on Youtube; move to the part of the video session of your interest within the video recording

Toxicity and feasibility of total neoadjuvant therapy using short course radiation followed by chemotherapy

Introduction:Upfront neoadjuvant chemoradiation followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy remained a standard of care for locally advanced rectal cancers. However this strategy is associated with high rates of distant failure. Total neoadjuvant therapy with short course radiation therapy (SCRT) followed by full course of chemotherapy is investigated to assess toxicity&feasibility. Patients and methods: Fifty-one patients with locally advanced rectal cancer who presented to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University, in the period from March 2018 to December 2020 were enrolled. Patients were assigned to neoadjuvant short course radiation therapy (25 Gy/ 5 fractions/1 week), then 2 weeks from the end of radiation they were commenced to full course chemotherapy CAPOX (capecitabine1000 mg/m2 BID, D1-14 and oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 D1) for 6 cycles, followed by surgery within 4-6 weeks from the last chemotherapy cycle. Type of surgery was decided upon surgeon’s discretion. Results: All patients completed their planned radiation therapy. Only 1 patient had grade III radiation related diarrhea. Forty three patients completed their planned chemotherapy course, 8 patients had grade III diarrhea. As regard hematological toxicity, 6 patients developed grade 3 toxicity and only one patient developed grade 4 toxicity.&nbsp

‘Job opportunities for the youth’: Competing and overlapping discourses on youth unemployment and work informality in Egypt

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. Employment informality, or employment without access to work contracts and social insurance, is the norm for Egypt’s working youth, including educated youth. Despite the policy focus on youth as a demographic group, particularly after the country’s recent political developments, informality and precariousness remain largely absent from the policy discourse in Egypt. Youth unemployment rates continue to be the main yardstick for youth welfare in the country. Drawing on Bacchi’s ‘What is the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach, the analysis in this article seeks to elucidate the implicit assumptions in this policy approach. The article juxtaposes the policy discourse on youth unemployment and informality to that of interviewed educated youth working informally. The two discourses overlap in assigning the state a central role in providing jobs in the public service for youth and in marginalizing the potential to address issues of employment precariousness outside such jobs. They are in discord, however, when young people articulate strong feelings of injustice when these prized jobs are not made available