Administration system

This section discusses the Egyptian administrative system, which acts as one of the most essential requirements for effective planning, implementation and monitoring of development generally, and ecotourism particularly. The administrative system refers to the operating authorities that provide and organise the state services and development. It contains three main branches: Executive, Legislative13 and Judiciary14 authorities. This research will focus on the executive authority, which is the one most relevant to its research objectives.

The executive authority in Egypt, as in most developing countries, can be described as a highly centralised authority where central government dominates all local administration functions, as described below.

At the head of central government is the President, who is the head of the executive system and the dominant figure in executive administration; the Prime Minister – who is appointed by the President – is the second most important person. They work in partnership to formulate the general policies of the state and supervise their implementation through a Deputy Prime Minister and committees. The Cabinet is

13 _{The Legislative: consists of the Parliament and the Consultative Council. They discuss and propose the}

regulations and send them to the President to issue the laws. They are mandated to accept general state policies, the economic and social development plans as well as the state budget. They are also tasked with monitoring and evaluating how the executive authority works (Loughlin & Nada 2012).

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responsible for preparing the general budget and socio-economic plans of the state, which should be approved by the Parliament. The most important roles of the cabinet are coordination between Ministries by reviewing their policies and plans. Meanwhile, each Minister is responsible for drafting and implementing relevant policies according to the general policy framework created by the state (Eiweida 2000; Loughlin & Nada 2012).

Egyptian Ministries are classified into three types based on their relationships with local administration units (as presented in Figure 4-5). The first type is ‘State Ministries’, which mainly perform technical functions at the central level and are not actually engaged in implementation of the major programmes. This includes the Minister of State for Environmental Affairs (MSEA). The second type of Ministry is mandated to implement their plans and activities on the ground, although they are not required to transfer their competences to the local administrative units. Instead they create regional offices at the Governorate level. Unfortunately, these offices do not follow the policies of the Governorates but, rather, follow – technically and administratively – the policies of their mandating central Ministry or agency. The majority of these Ministries are usually concerned with delivering economic development, such the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Tourism. The third type involves Ministries that have moved some of their responsibilities to local administrative units through directorates. Most are mandated with human development responsibilities, such as education, health and housing, etc. These directorates follow and report technically to the relevant Ministry, while they follow and report administratively to the Governorate15. When reviewing the decision-making powers and the budgeting process adopted by the second and third types of Ministries, it could be argued that their excessive centralisation and dualism (EC-3 and EC-14)16 has led to a weakening of the ability of local administrative units to achieve or manage development activities to meet local needs (Loughlin & Nada 2012).

15 _{According to Article 3 of the Local Administration Law 7.}

16 _{A reference to the interviewee/s: the acronyms refer to the interviewee groups: EC= Experts & Consultants in}

ecotourism development or participatory planning, PS = An employee in the Public Sector, PrS = Representative of the Private Sector bodies, NG = A member of NGO boards, LC = A member of the key persons of the Local Communities, T= Representative of the ecotourists, FIO = A member of the Funder and International Organisations; and the number refers to the serial number of the interviewee in each group.

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Figure (4-5) Executive Authorities’ functional structure

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Figure (4-6) Local administration units Source: The author based on Eiweida (2000)

Regarding the local administrative system, Egypt is divided into 27 Governorates; each Governorate, as Figure (4-6) shows, is sub-divided into county (Markaz or City Region), and each county is composed of at least one city and group of villages. The cities are further divided into one or more district (Haye). As Figure (4-5) illustrates, the local administrative system is led by the Governor as head of the system, who is appointed by the President. The Governorate administrative system involves: i) Governorate affairs offices, which are responsible for data collection, planning and programming, budgeting and revenues, and monitoring and evaluation; ii) directorates, which are the representatives of Ministries concerned with human development, e.g. education, health, etc.; and iii) a Governorate executive council, which (chaired by the Governor) has been given various mandates by local administration laws, such as following up the implementation of key projects and services and assisting the Governor in drawing up the Governorate’s administrative and financial plans.

At a local level there is also the Popular Local Council (PLC), whose members are all elected. The elected PLC has acquired the power, at least theoretically, to approve or reject the local budget. PLCs are designed to reflect and organise public participation activities, with general review and consultative responsibilities.17 Although PLCs have the power to seek to resolve local problems with the relevant

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Ministry or the Prime Minister if the Governorate budget cannot cover them, they do not have the actual authority to carry out their responsibilities.

There are also Regional Planning Centres (RPCs)18, which follow the guidance of the General Organization of Physical Planning (GOPP), which is a central state authority. They not have any direct relationships with the Governorates within which they operate.

At the local level, a Municipality is the executive council at a county, city or village administrative unit. It is mandated to perform the same functions as the Governorate executive council, albeit at a local scale. Although the structure of functions performed at the local level looks very simple, in reality, municipalities often cannot fulfil any of their functions efficiently because of a shortage of qualified technical staff, weak coordination and the lack of any information exchange between organisations (Eiweida 2000).

Synthesis

The administrative system described above is highly centralised and dominated by one person (the President) who appoints all the high posts in the government, such as the Prime Minister, Ministers and Governors. Therefore, the administrative leaders of Egypt tend to be narrow-minded and interested in short-term benefits to satisfy their superiors (EC-13). In addition, the administrative system suffers from vertical and horizontal fragmentation that has led to widely overlapping remits and consequently big conflicts in their responsibilities and plans. Although in theory Cabinet and Governorate offices should provide horizontal coordination between authorities, both are struggling with numerous responsibilities, efforts, and activities covering many different fields, such as data collection, planning and budgeting, etc. Similarly, there is no effective vertical coordination between the central and local government (Murad 2012). Nevertheless, local government has been dominated by the central administrations. Such deficiencies in the existing administrative system can be

18 _{GOPP has seven regional planning authorities; each one acting as a decentralised arm of the GOPP in}

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considered the main obstacle to the emergence of an effective CP in development planning.

4.1.4 Economic contexts

The Egyptian economy comprises four main sectors (agriculture, industry, tourism and services), although this section focuses only on tourism because this sector relates closely to the research objectives.

Tourism has been the fastest-growing sector of the Egyptian economy for the last two decades (Leila 2009). It acted as one of the main sources of national income and a pillar for comprehensive development in Egypt. Moreover, tourism is integrated with more than 70 feeder and supplementary services and industries, such as construction, transportation, restaurants, bazaars and guides (JICA 2000). Tourism represents nearly 40% of Egyptian non-commodity exports, and is the main source of foreign currency (making up 20% of Egypt’s foreign exchange revenue in 201019₎

(Manakos 2013). Tourism is also one of the most labour-intensive activities, providing 4.5 million direct and indirect jobs (each direct job opportunity in tourism creates three indirect opportunities in other economic sectors). This was equivalent to about 13.9% of the total labour force in 2010.The total tourism contribution to GDP in 2010 was 15.8% (WTTC 2011). Due to recent political disturbances, since the 25th January Revolution in 2011, the significance of the tourism sector has faltered. There was a slight upswing in 2012, but since then it has fallen away again sharply (see Table 4-2):

Table (4-2) Changes of the tourism sector as a result of the political turmoil

2010 2011 2012 2013

The tourism contribution to GDP 15.8% 14.8% 13.4% 9.5%

The tourism contribution to employment 13.9% 13.1% 12.1% 8.9%

Source: The author based on WTTC (2011, 2012, 2014)

Although the tourism sector is in decline, many anticipate a quick renewal of tourist arrivals when greater political stability is achieved. Egypt's Central Bank confirmed there was economic upturn in the tourism sector between June 2012 and

19 _{The research was designed using 2010 statistics which reflect the tourism demand before the unstable political}

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June 2013, when the number of tourists increased by 13% (ECB 2013). Some economists are optimistic about the future, highlighting how the tourism sector recovered quickly from previous terrorist attacks and the Gulf war in the 1990s, in part helped by international investment and the role of global tour operators (Rady & TDA 2002). However, although these initiatives helped the tourism sector to recover, they also led to environmental degradation as a result of a state strategy which was concerned with the number of tourists rather than quality of the tourism offered (EC- 8). Based on experience, once political stability returns, the state needs to involve relevant stakeholders in developing sustainable strategies which emphasise the quality of the tourism sector’s offering.

Egyptian share of world tourism in 2010 was around 1.2%, equivalent to about 23% of total Middle East tourism, and 1% of total international tourism revenues (SIS 2013c). However, the competitiveness rank of the Egyptian tourism sector dropped six places from 58th out of 124 in 2007, to 64th out of 133 in 2009, and then, two years later, Egypt dropped a further 11 places in 201120to become 75th out of 139 countries worldwide (WEF 2007, 2011). Egypt’s decline is a result of: i) long-term issues impeding effective tourism development. According to The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), these issues are: safety and security (Egypt’s rank in this criteria is 135th out of139), environmental sustainability (113th), IT infrastructure (93rd), tourism services and infrastructure (88th), biodiversity and quality of natural resources (85th), and education and training of human resources (93rd) (WEF 2011). All these factors inhibit the growth of Egyptian tourism and potentially could be improved through the establishment of partnerships with the relevant stakeholders, e.g. the private sector, to address the problems outlined above (EC-5 and EC-10); ii) a focus on beach tourism, which actually provides 75% of the total Egyptian tourism market (Hilmi et al. 2012). That has led to degradation of the coastal and marine resources. For instance, in the Hurghada, 50 genera of corals have been damaged (Hilmi et al. 2012); and iii) increasing local competition from countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Israel and Lebanon, which has started to attract part of the

20 _{The effects of the political turmoil are not yet captured by the data discussed within this report because it was}

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Middle Eastern and North African tourist market, particularly as many of these countries had not, until recently, experienced the same political problems as in Egypt. Egypt could mitigate some of these challenges by employing its natural and cultural potentials in developing more sustainable ecotourism to diversify its tourism market.