Social Solidarity Ministry champions national drive for women empowerment
Ministry to release new strategy to encourage, organise volunteerism
Protection of civil, socioeconomic rights coming at centre of ministry’s work
Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity can rightly be called the ‘Ministry of Human Rights’, thanks to the great services and care it offers the members of the public. These services and this care accompany beneficiaries from birth to death and last, even after their death.
In an exclusive interview with Mohamed Fahmy, the chief editor of the Egyptian Mail, the weekly publication of The Egyptian Gazette, Minister of Social Solidarity, Neveen el-Qabbaj, talks about a wide range of issues, including the initiatives of her ministry, its programmes and the services it offers ordinary people.
Minister of Social Solidarity, Neveen el-Qabbaj, expected the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh this November, to lead to a big ‘paradigm shift’ in Egyptians’ thinking about environmental sustainability and rationalising the use of natural resources.
“Some people are not really aware of the environmental issues the world suffers from,” Minister el-Qabbaj said. “COP27 will be a unique chance to raise public awareness about these issues.”
She said the Ministry of Social Solidarity would play three main roles during COP27.
One of these roles, she said, is to highlight the pivotal role and success stories of the civil society in climate action with the aim of keeping the momentum of the conference even after it comes to an end.
The minister added that the ministry would also be responsible for ensuring that Sharm el-Sheikh would be fully accessible to people with disabilities.
“These people include visitors to the city and conference participants from inside and outside Egypt,” the minister said.
She added that the ministry would be keeping its eyes focused on people with all types of disabilities.
She noted that the third mission of the Ministry of Social Solidarity would be to encourage volunteerism.
The ministry, she added, would mobilise up to 1,000 volunteers who would be part of the organisation and management of the conference.
NGOs and environmental sustainability
Minister el-Qabbaj pointed out that the selection of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that would participate in the summit is not fully through the ministry.
The Foreign Ministry, she said, would do this job in co-operation with the Ministry of Environment.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity, she added, had submitted a list of NOGs that are interested in participating in the event.
“Another list was filed by the Ministry of Environment,” the minister said. “So, we complement each other.”
She noted that NGOs are primarily picked in the light of their capacities and diversity of topics.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity will have one pavilion in the Green Zone and another in the Blue Zone.
Minister el-Qabbaj revealed that her ministry’s team considers increasing the number of NGOs participating in the ministry’s activities in the two zones.
The ministry has been in continual contact with NGOs to discuss environmental concerns at the national level.
“Civil society organisations have proposed over 70 initiatives so far,” the minister said. “We selected between seven and ten topics that are the most important.”
She said her ministry focuses on the environmental challenges faced by NGOs and also the achievements made in the past period.
Like all other state institutions, the Ministry of Social Solidarity has added an environmental dimension to the specifications of projects to be implemented by the civil society.
These projects, Minister el-Qabbaj said, have to be environment-friendly and not cause pollution or degradation of natural resources.
“We are concerned about casual workers, farmers, and fishermen,” Minister el-Qabbaj said. “After all, the poorest are the most affected by environmental issues.”
This is why the Ministry of Social Solidarity wants to ensure that these segments of the Egyptian society have equal opportunities.
“This is a matter of social justice,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
Building volunteers’ capacities
Minister el-Qabbaj revealed that her ministry had received over 9,900 requests from volunteers who want to participate in COP27.
She praised young people’s enthusiasm, noting that her ministry would be keen to have a diverse group of volunteers in the conference, including Egyptians, Africans, people with disabilities, and refugees.
“We will be keen to have people with varying capacities, age groups and languages,” the minister said.
She added that volunteers with previous experience in contributing to similar conferences would be given priority in the selection process.
The selected volunteers, the minister said, would preferably speak different languages and be technophiles.
“We also need volunteers who are ready to serve people with disabilities,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity will organise training sessions in the coming weeks for volunteers picked to participate in the summit.
The training, the minister said, would aim to customise the volunteers to the needs of the conference and their missions in it.
Minister el-Qabbaj revealed that her ministry would unveil the National Volunteerism Strategy by the end of this month.
She said there are many volunteers out there, but they are far from organised or well-trained.
“There are opportunities to get the most capable to serve [society],” the minister said.
Minister el-Qabbaj pointed to the need for a unified database for volunteering.
“We try to have everything governed and well-organised,” she said.
She expected COP27 to be a good lesson for everybody who would participate in it, one that could be replicated with other initiatives.
Women empowerment
Empowering women especially those in rural areas is at the heart of the Ministry of Social Solidarity’s strategy.
Minister el-Qabbaj said rural women are negatively affected by pollution which harms their health.
Pollution, the minister added, also has negative impacts on women’s productivity.
“We also need to bear in mind that some women are deprived of environmental awareness,” the minister said.
She added that her ministry is deeply concerned about women living in slums, especially unsafe ones.
“We are concerned about the quality of life they have,” the minister said of female slum dwellers.
She added that local women usually sacrifice for their families and their communities.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity empowers women by helping them become productive members of society.
This, the minister said, helps women get out of the cycle of poverty.
“Women usually have more opportunities when it comes to micro-enterprises,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity also works to protect women against violence, including by offering refuge to the victims of violence.
Apart from violence, the ministry works to end women’s deprivation of education and healthcare.
“We address poverty as an issue through a multi-dimensional approach,” the minister said.
Efforts are also made by the Ministry of Social Solidarity to promote women’s reproductive health, including through the ‘Two are Enough’ initiative.
The ministry, Minister el-Qabbaj said, also supports women by giving them the chance to take their financial decisions.
“Women are now coming at the centre of financial inclusion,” the minister said. “They can calculate and manage their budgets on their own.”
Around 74% of the beneficiaries of the social welfare programme, Takaful and Karama (Solidarity and Dignity), are women, according to the minister.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity has set a number of terms for women to benefit from the programme, including regular reproductive health check-ups and having two children only.
“Family planning will help us put the population growth under control,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
She added that almost 75% of all micro-enterprises in Egypt are owned by women.
Around 68% of these enterprises are present in rural and slum areas.
“We target the poorest members of society,” the minister said.
To get to these poor members of society, the Ministry of Social Solidarity focuses on projects that aim to achieve food security.
These projects, the minister said, help poor members of society have healthy children.
She added that the ministry also pays the education fees of these poor members of society and the cost of the healthcare offered them, including the cost of the medical treatment of breast cancer sufferers.
“These efforts contribute to relieving burdens on women,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
The Takaful and Karama programme has so far helped 920,000 women get basic education and get out of the illiteracy cycle, according to the minister.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity also has a special programme for nursery schools.
Sending children to nursery schools, Minister el-Qabbaj said, ensures the mental development of the children.
“Nursery schools are not places where mothers send the children to temporarily get rid of them,” the minister said. “They are rather places where the children have a good chance for mental development.”
Social justice, equal opportunities
The ministry also adopts a comprehensive methodology to ensure the delivery of services to all those who need them.
The ministry has 6,000 offices, through which it can oversee the fair and equal distribution of services.
Minister el-Qabbaj and her team also have a complaints’ mechanism which gives them access into the problems of ordinary people.
“People can easily reach out to us through this mechanism,” the minister said.
The ministry’s inspectors also go from door to door to listen to people and cater to their needs.
“These field visits aim to ensure that our services go to those who most deserve them,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
Human rights
It is worth noting that the Ministry of Social Solidarity has founded a human rights section, along with another one to fight corruption.
Minister el-Qabbaj said her ministry cares about civil rights and socioeconomic rights.
The minister added that civil rights include the right to launch initiatives, open NGOs, or contribute to campaigns.
“Civil rights are very important,” the minister said.
She added that socioeconomic rights include the protection of people’s right to education, healthcare and decent life.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity, the minister said, prepares regular reports about these rights and refers them to the Foreign Ministry.
Drug addiction
The Ministry of Social Solidarity also plays a role in protecting those who give up drug addiction.
The ministry has a special mechanism, namely the Addiction Treatment and Abuse Fund, through which it carries out this mission.
The ministry’s recovery centres have also increased to 28 in the different governorates, from 12 in the past.
Minister el-Qabbaj revealed that her ministry has a plan to raise the number of these centres to 33 in the near future.
She said over 100,000 people have benefited from the fund, which offers its services for free, so far.
“Around 6% of these beneficiaries were women,” the minister said.
She added that her ministry’s rehabilitation process for recovered addicts includes their training in crafts needed by the local labour market.
She revealed that around 9,500 recovered persons had received training so far.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity also works to immunise casual workers against drug addiction, especially given the fact that this addiction is sometimes high among these contract workers.
Legislative framework
The ministry has also been working on a raft of bills, especially in relation to childhood, NGOs and people with disabilities, to ensure the protection of the rights of these segments of the Egyptian society.
Before drafting bills in these areas, the ministry’s officials launch dialogues with those concerned to ensure that these people’s voices are heard and interests taken into account.
This happened before and during the formulation of the NGOs bill.
The ministry’s legal experts talked with experts, NGO representatives and young people.
“We went from one governorate to another to hear everybody’s voice,” the minister said.
Takful and Karama
In 2014, around 1.7 million households benefited from the Takaful and Karama programme.
The number of households benefiting from the programme has now risen to 5 million.
The programme, the minister said, is managed electronically to ensure visibility and transparency.
The ministry has developed a database that includes around 10 million households.
“These 10 million households have 37.5 million people in them,” Minister el-Qabbaj said.
She added that the programme, which has a budget of 25 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $1.2 billion), makes sure that a specific quota of its beneficiaries is made up of households led by women.
“It also has a quota for elderly people, another for orphaned children and a third for people with disabilities,” the minister said.
“The programme also ensures that people within these quotas are distributed to all the governorates equally,” she added.
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