World Bank's Economic Policy in Egypt 2000-2010: Political Impact

Thesis

“Economic Policy of the World Bank in the Egypt

during the period 2000-2010: Is it Politicized?”

Presented By

Abdelhamied Hany El-Rafie

Under the Supervision of

Stephen Murray

Director of the Marshal Goldsmith Program

Alliant International University

Mexico City Campus

1 Abdelhamied El_Rafie

‫بدمىاللهىالرحمنىالرحومى‬

‫)اللكمىاذرحىليىصدريىوىودرىليىامرىىوىاحللىرقدةىمنىلدانيىوفقكواىقوليى)ى‬

‫‪‬إهداءىإلىىأبىىوىأميىلدرائكمىالمدتمرىلىىوىلمعاناتكماىفىىتربوتي‬

‫وىإلىىدعادةىالدفورىالعظومىإبراهومىركديىخورتى‬

‫‪‬‬‫الذيىداندنيىوىذجعنيىالدتكمالىالماجدتور‬

‫وىإلىىارزىماىليىفيىالدنواى‬

‫ابنيىهانيىوإبنىىوادون‬

‫2‬ ‫‪Abdelhamied El_Rafie‬‬

Introduction:

My research topic will be: “Economic Policy of the World Bank in the Egypt during the

period 2000-2010: Is it Politicized?”

Main theme:

The basic idea of the research is to examine whether there are direct or indirect political

impacts of the economic policy and operations of the bank in Egypt.

Time period:

The research will focus on the operations of the Bank during the Period 2000-2010.

Questions I will try to answer in my thesis:

1. What is the official mission and the real role of the World Bank in today’s world?

2. Does this role or mission have political impacts in the world?

3. What is the Economic system imposed by the World Bank in the region?

4. Is the role of the World Bank affected by the political situation in Egypt?

5. What are the historical backgrounds of the WB operations in Egypt?

6. What are the targets and goals of such operations?


Hypothesis of the research:

The World Bank role in Egypt is conditioned by the international and regional political

situation, the policies of development investments and the policy-making process of the

board of directors of the Bank.

Although World Bank operations will help Egypt to reach sustainable economic growth,

those operations might face obstacles due to the lack of political and economic

integration in the Middle East region.

Structure of the Research:

Part I

The World Bank from inside:

1. Mission of the WB according to the Bank itself.

2. Historical background.

3. The voting power in the Board.

4. Structural adjustment programs.

5. Reforms within the WB.

6. The bank assistance programs.

7. The relation between the WB and The United States.

Part II


The World Bank and Egypt

1. Historical background about the relation between the WB and Egypt.

2. Egyptian Economic progress.

3. The WB evaluation to the economic situation in Egypt in 2001.



6. Developments from 2008 till 2010.

Part III

The final analysis

1. The current International Economic system.

2. Has Egypt followed the WB ?and what about the social and political prices?

3. Is there another option for Egypt?

4. Economic integration in the Middle East and its future with regards to the

deterioration in the Peace process.

‫ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬


Part I

The World Bank from Inside

Mission of the World Bank (according to the Bank itself)

“The World Bank (WB) is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing
countries around the world. The mission of the WB is to fight poverty by providing resources,
sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.”1

“The WB is made up of two development institutions owned by 187 member countries:
the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International
Development Association (IDA). Each institution plays a different but collaborative role in
advancing the vision of inclusive and sustainable globalization. The IBRD aims to reduce poverty
in middle-income and creditworthy poorer countries, while IDA focuses on the world's poorest
countries.”2

Historical background:

After the end of the Second World War, the US found itself superior in every form. The

US was trying to invest the superiority in which it ended the war as an acquirer of nuclear

weapons, so the US was superior on the military side and politically it was the leader of

the Pact who won the war. After the war, the US put its economic and military power to

confront the Soviet Union. On the economic side, the US had funded through the World

Bank the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan; on the military side, it gave a

smooth direction towards the creation of a western military alliance named NATO.

1
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~piPK:36602~the
SitePK:29708,00.html
2
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~piPK:36602~the
SitePK:29708,00.html


The US used its economic and military dominance to manage and control the world

economy. The key features of that world economy were that it has the features of both

liberalism and multilateralism; the system was based on liberal economic principals.

Western states participated in three international organizations which were created to

achieve the capitalist economic order. These three organizations are the International

Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

(IBRD) (effectively the World Bank (WB)) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade (GATT) which was transferred recently to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Not only this, these western countries had put restrictions on the memberships of these

organizations and didn’t allow any country that was not following free-market principals

in their internal economic management to have membership.

Under this economic system, the United States, Western Europe and Japan have achieved

under this economic system what has been called a golden era of economic growth during

the 50s until the early 70s.

Countries (apart from the developed world) have not been protected from the pressures of

the global market. Two developments happened during the 70s and 80s which led to

economic competition between developing states. The first was the decision of China to

begin an era of trade and foreign direct investment to allow trade and foreign investment

into China by the west. The second development was the debt crisis in the 1980s.3

3
Robert O’Brien and Marc Williams, Global Political Economy, 2004, pp. 113-134.


The World Bank was founded in an international conference after the end of World War

Two aiming for a framework of international economic governance. The target was

stability of the world economy: for this reason, the International Monetary Fund was

established as the core of the system, the World Bank (then

the IBRD) was to provide governments with assistance to offer the private sector

especially in the field of reconstruction and investment and attracting direct investments.

The IBRD started its work in September 1946; the first loan of the Bank was to France

with a value of US$250 million. The number of member countries of the Bank then was

38; now after more than sixty years it has reached 185 member states. During this same

period, the Bank had 11 Presidents and it supported countries with more than US$500

billion in the form of investment in the resources and loans for poorer countries.

The IBRD, which is the major lending part of the World Bank system, holds loans

currently of more than US$100 billion; it has average yearly profits of US$1 billion since

its foundation in which allowed itself to make grants to other organizations within the

WB including the International Development Association.4

The WB is supposed to meet social necessities in which the private sector will not be able

to fulfill; the WB should also face market failures which could happen through three

phases: the first is capital deficiency, the second skills know-how deficiency, and the

third a complex of resources scarcities.

The WB role at the beginning was concentrated on finance and it started in Europe as a

reconstruction financier, then the WB started in the fifties to do the same job with poor

4
David A. Phillips, Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, pp. 1-6.


countries. Later the WB changed its priorities: it moved beyond finance towards

economic structure and models of economic growth. That is why the IDA was established

but still the major role of the WB was to finance but it went further towards infrastructure

projects such as telecommunications, power and industry. The working strategy of the

WB became more diversified over the next decades: it included social sectors, support to

economic reform, technical assistance projects, training and research.

The shift towards investing in the infrastructure started during the presidency of Robert

McNamara (1968-1981) through his belief that investments and direct financing alone

were not addressing correctly the problem of poverty. The scope transferred during the

eighties into the issues of debt, structural adjustments and restoration of private

investments and financial flows to the developing countries; thus it was a transfer

towards macroeconomic adjustments. The WB role was important in international

financing but this importance was reduced during its lending expansion during the debt

crisis of the eighties, although it was responsible for less than 50% of international flows.

Currently the WB is responsible for about 85% of the total flow of capital to developing

nations in the form of direct investment and portfolio investments.

Under the presidency of Paul Wolfowitz there was another shift, towards what is called

the “Knowledge Bank” which was first declared in 1996. This was a transfer from

infrastructure and macroeconomic adjustment towards so called “Institution Building”,

which is concerned with the regulations of the market and legal frameworks.5

The voting power in the Board:

5


The way the Bank is ruled is very important in order to understand the management of

the Bank. The Bank consists of lenders, shareholders and informal activist groups, and

each group is divided into sub-groups. The Bank’s creditors target is to get repaid so they

are concerned about profits and security. Due to this the United States (because it is the

largest shareholder) uses the bank for its foreign policy objectives more than other

members. The board of governors has 24 individuals representing 185 countries and G5

are permanently represented by their own government. The governors are the final

decision-makers by they only meet two times a year, then power is given to the executive

directors. These directors are permanently available in the bank; this has led to

management problems in the bank because of the contradiction in management between

the top level and the executive level.6

Table 1. Board voting power

1965 1975 1985 1995 2006

Countries 102 125 149 178 185

Board 20 20 21 24 24

members

54.9% 51.3% 49.7% 43.3% 43.0%

G7 votes

OECD votes 67.6% 64.7% 63.6% 57.5% 55%

6


US votes 26.3% 22.7% 19.7% 17.0% 16.4%

(David A. Phillips, Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, p. 16)

Structural adjustment programs:

The structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the International Monetary

Fund (which started in 1980) have taken significant percentage of the World Bank’s

lending power which was above the originally set budget by 25%. The idea of adjustment

was accompanied with the policies of liberalization during the period of the presidency of

Ronald Reagan in the US. The basic idea was to find the solution for the poor economies

to face their 1979-1980 shock of booming oil prices. The idea was to recycle the revenues

of selling petroleum to the poor economies in the form of low-cost loans to help them to

save their economic structure. The first part of the solution was implemented by the IMF

by financing the economies and by cutting public spending. But on the other hand, these

reforms were having high political sequences: at the beginning the SAPs (Structural

Adjustment Programs) was shorter from three to five years, but suddenly these programs

were longer as a result of difficult political conditions.7

Reforms within the WB

7


The target of the 1990s reforms in the World Bank was to reorganize the operation areas

of the Bank and address issues like the huge numbers in the bureaucracy which have

greatly increased the cost of doing business within the WB and led to slowness of the

organization; so the basic element of change was introduced, what is called “the matrix

management system”.

This matrix was to prevent relocation of power and conflicts within the management and

to improve the flow of business and information. The restructure includes engineering

industries and software development. The matrix has had some success in 96 countries in

Africa.

The problem was lost synergy but there was a problem in the managerial control which

was reduced to the minimum level in the country units and increased at the level of the

specialist department, which led to span of control of around eight senior management

levels.

A letter was published in The Financial Times about the matrix system, saying that it had

failed and improvement stopped, staff were talking about confusion and stress among

them and the mangers. The staff association claimed that the management had a lack of

understanding of the concepts of management. In 2001 in an official bank newsletter, it

stated that the matrix system could be credited with an increase in country focus by

improving technicalities and having a capacity of rapid response.


The following table shows the administrative budget of IBRD in million dollars.8

Table 2. The administrative budget: IBRD and IDA ($ millions)

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Regions

(direct operations) 651 710 740 779 708 775 816

Of which ´regional functions´ 50 78 83 100 140

Regions less ´regional functions´ 690 701 625 675 676

Networks 61 86 107 124 119 147 159

8
Taken from David A. Phillips, Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, pp. 67-71.


Other (quality and support) 2 11 13 19 23 24 31

Training and research 88 92 97 87 93 97 110

a
Other net overheads 354 357 366 364 387 365 396

b
Administrative budget 1156 1256 1322 1373 1330 1407 1511

Administrative budget plus Board 1126 1329 1397 1453 1414 1490 1604
c
costs

Of which OED (IEG) 15.5 16.0 16.8 18.5 19.2 19.8 20.3

Board and Secretariat 54.2 57.1 58.1 61.8 64.9 63.2 72.8


a
Consists of finance administration and management services and contingencies.

b
There are various different measures of administrative costs. This figure is before counting

reimbursable fees, and the last line excludes the development grant fund and the costs of

pensions.

c
This includes the board, corporate secretariat and IEG (OED)

Source: Annual reports and estimates

The Bank Assistance Programs

The bank assistance programs could be perceived through three stages: A) capital

deficiency, B) capital efficiency and related skills / know-how deficiency, C) capacity,

know-how and information deficiency. By this kind of assistance, the Bank transferred

from the initial role of financial aid and infrastructure assistance to those social sectors

such as macroeconomic activities, market regulations, legal reforms and anti-corruption

programs. These programs were delivered through financing and not financial tools. On

the financing side, it includes loans for sector investment, adjustment and poverty

reductions and adjustment lending; knowledge assistance, training and research have

been also involved by focusing on technical projects to the countries instead of just

economic policy. The structural adjustment lending had been remade into development

policy lending and it was extended to support poverty reduction.9

9


During the 1990s the issue of conditionality had put the WB neutrality into question,

which is why the then president of the Bank, Paul Wolfensohn, started a dialogue in 1996

about the Structural Adjustment Programs and another dialogue was held in 2001.

During the process of reform of the SAPs there was disagreement between meeting the

targets of these programs and the need to commit countries themselves; as it turned out,

less than half of the countries had well-planned medium-term strategies.

There was a huge need for local participation in the process of adjustment. This needed a

stronger participation from inside and outside the government, and that was a normal

change in the WB’s work, involving a transfer from adjustment lending towards

introducing knowledge projects and services.10

Knowledge services had serious setbacks they have many losses plus their excessive

costs which needed to be subsidized by the WB through loans or income investment, or

financed outside the normal processes, there was smaller efforts to put in priority the

knowledge bank because the charging fees for that system took place in 1997 was not

justified because according to that system only few countries could pay those fees.11

NEW FINANCIAL PRODUCTS

Table 5. The Bank´s financial products in 2007.12

10
David A. Phillips , Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, pp. 124-128.
11
12
David A. Phillips , Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, p. 152.


Product Outstanding ($ billion)

Fixed spread loans 32.1

Variable spread loans 42.1

Multicurrency pool (variable) 9.3

Single currency pool (variable) 6.6

Single currency loans (fixed) 4.8

Special development policy loans 2.3

Other 0.6

Source: Annual Report 2007

Figure 2. IBRD and IDA: administrative cost burden.

The relation between the WB and the United States:


The targets of the US with regard to the WB was driven more by its foreign and domestic

policies than by its interests in achieving WB targets; indeed it might be argued that US

pressures have put some limit on the good functioning of the Bank. Another observer has

noticed that any dissatisfaction by the US executive director sends a direct signal and

impact on the actions of the WB. The US was supportive of the WB for the first twenty

years; then during the 70s this support was variable due to the assistance policies of the

US; then the support was reduced during the Regan administration at the White House

during which it started to oppose certain WB strategies.13

The president of the WB is not only the most prominent figure but he is also the chief

executive so he is the most important person at the institution; but the selection of that

leader is critical towards the effectiveness of the WB and his selection has not been up to

the present day under any part of the process of reform of the Bank.14

Article 5 of the Bank’s agreement states that the executive directors elect the President

but this article was never accurately used, but some writers cite it ironically as it is the US

president who chooses the Bank’s president.15

13
14
15


Part II

The World Bank and Egypt

Historical Background

The Egyptian economy witnessed several phases of development since the 23rd of July

Revolution of 1952. It started by the Agricultural Reform in September 1952 which

reallocated the agricultural wealth and stated that by law no person can own more than 50

feddans (1 feddan equals 0.42 hectares); then in 1954 there was what we call the “state

direct investment in the economy”, that was in the iron and steel company. At that time

the country was planning to build a high dam at Aswan to prevent the flood of the Nile

and to produce electricity for the country and it got a promise from the World Bank to

finance the building of the dam, but due to the Egyptian decision in 1955 to buy Soviet

weapons from Czechoslovakia and with pressure from the United States, the World Bank

withdrew its offer to finance the dam. This led the Egyptian President (Gamal Abdel

Nasser) to nationalize the Suez Canal. The consequences of this led to more state

intervention in the economy by creating the National Planning Commission in 1957.16

The second transformation in the economy started in 1960 on what was called by the

public the socialist decisions, by which the State played more of a role in comprehensive

national planning and application of trade with the Eastern Block.

The third stage started in 1967 which we can call the economy of war where the

government faced problems in financing its policies under the pressure that it had lands

16
State Information Service, http://www2.sis.gov.eg/Ar/Economy/introdaction/Development/050101000000000003.htm


occupied by Israel due to the 1967 War; military spending increased from 5.5% of GDP

in 1962 to 10% in 1967 and up to 20% in 1973.17

The fourth phase started in 1974 which was what was called the “economic openness

era”: this witnessed a lesser role of the State in planning and more Arab direct

investments. The country witnessed a growth rate of 9.8 % but this growth was in the

service sectors without real production.18

The next stage was in the period 1982-1990, which was a mixture between planning and

economic openness; there was huge spending on infrastructure and it was a slow

movement towards the market economy. In 1990 there was a big shift towards market

economy mechanisms which witnessed policies addressing fiscal imbalances, interest

rates, liberation and floating of the currency. In short, real reform started during the

period 1991-1997 which witnessed the start of policies of structural adjustment but the

results of this reform were affected by the 1997 financial crisis in East Asia. Then a new

period of economic reform started in 2004 until now.19

The WB Evaluation of the Economic Situation in Egypt in 2001

The Bank's focus on that report was in areas where (a) government commitment to

projects is strong; (b) the Bank has a long and positive experience (water sector and

irrigation; human development); (c) it can bring knowledge management and experience

of other countries to guide Egypt's policy reforms; and (d) it can serve as a catalyst for

17
18
State Information Service , http://www2.sis.gov.eg/Ar/Economy/introdaction/Development/050101000000000003.htm
19


mobilizing financing packages 2-3 times that of Bank loans for well-designed and high-

priority projects. The Bank had in this period a slight direct involvement in energy,

industrial restructuring, and environment.

Egypt economic performance was good in quantity terms but less good in quality terms;

the fastest sectors which has good growth were based on domestic demand, especially the

services sector which was the major participant to GDP growth, in particular tourism and

construction. The growth sectors in Egypt were not technology-concentrated projects and

they had no improvements in their productivity. Interestingly, there was no concerted

policy that was directed towards poverty eradication though poverty in the mid-1990s

affected between 22-48% of the total population.

With reference to achieve International development goals by 2015, in 2001 the prospects

were positive but this needed to achieve basically two things: the first involved reducing

the number of underweight children and the second was to achieve progress towards

gender equality. Thus there came about an overall policy that sought “Sustainable High

Growth and Poverty Reduction”. Egypt's key economic governance issues were related to

tax policy and administration; civil service reform; legal and judicial reform; greater

involvement and participation of civil society in service delivery and decision-making;

and corporate governance.

There was a huge problem which was that the access to financial sector data was limited.

Another basic problem according to the World Bank report in 2001 was that the annual


loss of agricultural land due to urban encroachment was estimated at between 15,000 and

30,000 feddans (1 feddan = 0.42 hectares). Also there were other negative comments by

that time because of poorly protected cultural and natural heritage. According to the

report, the country was facing a problem in which 95 percent of the population lived on

only 4 percent of the land. Also water scarcity would be a critical challenge for the future

of Egypt. The report expressed the need of removing obstacles to private sector

development.

On the positive side, the WB noticed that the Government had consistently expressed its

commitment to integrating women fully in development. Concerning the rights of

workers, the WB found that there was a necessity of extending the social insurance which

covered only the formal-sector employees and the private sector also. Also it was noticed

that, during the 80s and the 90s, Egypt had invested significantly in upgrading its

physical infrastructure but the WB pressed on the need for greater private participation in

infrastructure which in turn needed a legal reform. The Bank also noticed that

telecommunications and in particular internet infrastructure needed greater attention.

WB operations were estimated in 2001 at a total of US$450-600 million. Actually

operations were approved by the Board for about US$580 million, a figure which

depended on the investment climate, the availability of suitable transactions and partners,

and the level of competition in funding from local banks. And finally the WB stated that


lending to Egypt during that period would be strongly demand-driven and would,

therefore, inevitably fluctuate from year to year.20


The WB report about Egypt stated that Egypt had experienced high growth in the second

half of the 1990s following the adoption of a structural adjustment program. Also

according to the report, poverty had been reduced during the second half of the 1990s.

The report mentioned also that the country had a good record in providing education to

its citizens. But the 2005 report stressed that safety nets for the poor, though they existed,

had to be much improved. It also commented that the country was undergoing a

demographic transition which offered both challenges and opportunities.

The economic policies of the government during 2003/4 had made changes to the

economic system and proved that the country was able to accommodate both rapid and

substantial changes in the nature and content of economic policies; examples of that are

the flotation of the currency in 2003 and the reinvigoration of reform efforts in 2004.

In July 2004 the country had a promising program, which comprised long-term policies

starting from the mandate of the new government to improve living standards, promote

investment, reduce unemployment, contain inflation, and improve the performance of the

20
http://www-
wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2001/06/29/000094946_010614041127
83/Rendered/INDEX/multi0page.txt


financial system and of administrative bodies. Some bold reform measures had already

been initiated while plans had been announced for others.

According to its evaluation of the reform, the WB predicted then that

The success of the reform effort will depend, in part, on its social consequences. The
success of the reform effort will partly depend on public support which, in turn, will
depend on whether the consequences of the reforms are perceived to be inequitable and
burdensome for vulnerable groups A more open and competitive political system is in
prospect. Recently, at the recommendation of the President, Parliament changed the
relevant clauses in the Constitution to allow for multiple candidates to run for the office
of the President with the winner to be chosen in a direct and secret balloting procedure. It
is likely, therefore, that a more competitive political system may develop in the future,
providing a new vent for the full range of public opinion.21

The Bank also noticed that the Egyptian financial sector was characterized by

inefficiency and weaknesses in intermediation due primarily to the dominance of state

ownership; the Bank mentioned the actions of the government to improve the

performance and soundness of the financial sector. Subsequently, the government

proposed a series of measures: in the banking subsector, reform objectives included

merging the six most poorly performing banks with larger, better-performing banks; in

the insurance subsector, reform objectives included privatizing one of the state-owned

insurance companies, improving corporate governance

Though the Bank had hailed the government policies in trade policy reforms during the

1990s, Egypt's export performance deteriorated in this later period, contributing to the

slowdown in overall economic growth. To regain momentum in this area, the government

21
http://www-
18/Rendered/INDEX/321900rev3.txt


adopted a floating exchange rate system in 2003 and took steps to improve the

functioning of the interbank foreign exchange market in 2004.

The Cabinet, according to the report, intended to follow an asset-management approach
with the objective of maximizing returns from the restructuring or sale of state-owned
companies. In short, the basic idea was to reduce the number of state-owned companies
in order to reduce the involvement of the state in areas where private sector enterprises
can function.22


The executive mangers council submitted on June 2005 and discussed the strategy of

assistance for Egypt for the period 2006-2009, and the 2008 report evaluated the

execution of this strategy. The latter report mentions that Egypt is considered a middle

income country and the Egyptian government was capable during the last years to obtain

a strong record as one of the countries of Middle East and North Africa that implements

economic reforms.

The country had reduced trade barriers through three phases in 2005, 2006 and 2007 by

reducing average customs fees from 14.6% to 6.9%. It had also engaged in reforming the

taxation system, reducing subsidies for power, improving financing and debt

management, reforming the financial sector and improving the environment of doing

businesses; there were also some early steps towards executing reforms in the social

sector.

22
http://www-
18/Rendered/INDEX/321900rev3.txt


Total investment in the different economic sectors rose from 17.6% GDP during the

period 2001-2004 to 21.2% during the period 2004-2008, while foreign direct investment

rose to 8.6% in 2008; also investment in the private sector increased from 5.3% in 2005

to 7% in 2008, which indicates strong and positive economic performance. Reserves of

foreign currencies reached US$33 billion. The report welcomed the government efforts in

reducing the budget deficit which was a protracted problem throughout the history of the

Egyptian economy: in recent years this deficit reached 7.7% of GDP by the end of 2007

while it was 9.2% of GDP in 2006.

Although the country achieved strong performance during the last decade on the

macroeconomic level, and despite the improvement in social indicators, the report

mentions that poverty in Egypt in 2008 still affected around 20% of the population.

About the relation between the WB and Egypt, the Bank mentions that, despite the fact

that Egypt had better access to more financial resources from other international

organizations, it preferred to deal with the Bank because of the way of management of

the Bank and its programs in Egypt during the years of experience the country had with

the WB. Starting from 2005, the IBRD allocated a sum of US$1.797 billion in the form

of 15 projects of technical support provided to some sectors. There was also support

provided by the World Bank Institute especially for social responsibility endeavors of the

private sector.

The WB at the end of the report stresses that there were social and economic challenges

facing the country, particularly the achievement of justice with a leading role for the


private sector and the eradication of poverty. It mentioned that the Bank was committed

to continue providing its package of services to the country.23

Developments from 2008 till 2010

1. The President of the WB stated that there were two main challenges: tackling

unemployment and absorbing the social implications and development of

banking and the financial sector. The WB was working with the IMF in the

implementation of a program aimed to restructure the financial sector and

confront the increasing budget deficits, inflation and public debt.24

2. World Bank report on growth in 2009 expected contraction of world trade for

the first time since 1982, and lower growth rates in Egypt from 7.2% that year to

4.5% the following year .The report estimated the current account deficit of the

state that year at some 5.1% of GDP and the deficit was expected to decline to

2.7% in 2009 and then to 1.3% in 2010. The report said that after a long period of

strong growth, led by developing countries, the global economy was undergoing

a transition to one of great uncertainty and ambiguity, as a result of the severe

impact on global markets caused by the financial crisis in developed countries.

The report stated that world GDP increased by 2.5% in 2008 and 9.0% in 2009,

23

http://web.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=51187349&piPK=51189435&theSitePK=256307
&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=4962310&theSitePK=256307&entityID=000333038_2008102401
3450&searchMenuPK=4962310&theSitePK=256307
24
Ahram Newspaper, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2006/9/23/ECON2.HTM


with a low rate of growth in developing countries at 7.9% in 2007 and 4.5% the

following year, while high-income countries would see negative growth.25

3. A report of World Trade Indicators in 2008, issued by the World Bank, said that

Egypt has achieved a real growth rate of trade up to 8.1% in 2007. Egypt had

achieved a reduction in import restrictions since the beginning of the decade at

the Middle East and North Africa.26

4. The WB was calling for some protection policies to face the negative social

impacts of economic reform.27

5. The WB welcomed the efforts made by the Government to improve the

business environment by helping the private sector to have more investments by

removing business constraints.28

6. The Prime Minister of Egypt, Dr Ahmed Nazif, admitted that the impacts of the

world financial crisis affected the tourism sector but the sector was now

recovering. The WB was committed to help the Egyptian government in

achieving development in the main sectors of the economy.29

25
Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2008/12/8/ECON3.HTM,
http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2008/12/8/FRON6.HTM
26
Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2008/6/18/ECON7.HTM
27
28
29
Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2009/12/14/EGYP2.HTM


7. The external debt was US$31.5 billion during the year 2009-2008 which is lower

by US$204 million by comparison with the period 2007-2008.The total debt

service had increased in 2009 by 449.1 million dollars over 2008. The WB

classified Egypt with the group of countries with relatively low foreign debt and

among those who were secure in terms of debt service.30

8. According to the Egyptian ministry of economic development, the World Bank

reports show that there was a positive economic growth in Egypt and also a

decline in the number of the poor people. In 2005 there were 7 million Egyptians

under the poverty line, in 2009 the number had gone down to 6 million people .

however , the number is big according to officials in both the WB and

government of Egypt.31

9. Egypt has launched in 2010 an index of the corporate social responsibility (this

index had taken two years of preparation). The index will evaluate companies

and their ability to cover the humanitarian issues and the rights of their workers.

According to WB officials, there is a shared responsibility between the private

sector and society in general to achieve benefits to both sides.31

10. Economic polls have shown that 20% of the population of Egypt owns over 80%

of the national wealth and that, among these, 5% owns more than 50% of the

country’s wealth.32

30
Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/81/2010/02/18/5/8077/219.aspx

31
32


Annexes to Part II

Figure 1. These figures show the following: the first figure, which is concentrated in

doing business on the macropolicy level, shows that Egypt was ranked among the lowest

countries in the MENA region in terms of doing business, while Egypt comes fourth in

the region when we talk about the trade index. Also as the third figure shows, Egypt was

the lowest country in the region with regard to ease of doing business.33

33
MENA Development Report, “From Privilege to Competition”, p.8.


Figure 2. This figure shows that there were increases in the level of the private sector in

leading the economy and there was an increase in 2005 by comparison to the previous

decades, but there was not much difference because of the economic policies taken by the

government during the 1990s.34

Figure 3. This figure shows that the participation of private investment in the GDP was, on the

one hand among the lowest in the region and, on the other hand, was very low inside Egypt itself

because the economic environment reforms which started in 2004 did not reach their ultimate

goals.35

34
MENA Development Report, “From Privilege to Competition”, p. 26.
35


Figure 4. The figure shows that the structure of foreign direct investment in Egypt is

concentrated in the sectors of tourism, energy, finance, telecoms and manufacturing, but

it is clear it does not include high-tech services due to the lack of such services


development in Egypt. This explains why the country is increasing its budget for

technology, and specially information technology, nowadays.36

Figure 5. The figure shows that the export rate has increased from 5-6% during the period

1990-1999 to around 15% during the period 2000-2007. This could be due to the trade

agreement with the US, trade with the EU and joining the COMESA, all of which have

introduced new markets to the Egyptian products.37

36
37


Figure 6. Overall, the business environment in MENA countries looks “Average”, as it
does in many fast-growing economies.38

38


Figure 7. MENA Development Report, “From Privilege to Competition”, p. 82.


Part III

Final Analysis

1. The Current International Economic System

According to the International Monetary Fund Economic, "globalization" is a historical

process, the result of human innovation and technological progress. It refers to the

increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through the

movement of goods, services and capital across borders. The term sometimes also refers

to the movement of people (labor) and knowledge (technology) across international

borders. There are also broader cultural, political, and environmental dimensions of

globalization.”39

What we are witnessing today is a result of the victory achieved by the Western block

lead by the US ending the Cold war when Gorbachev reached power in Moscow in 1986.

In my opinion this represented the real shift in international politics, as most scholars

agree, and also in the international economic system – that is to say, the victory of

capitalism and the free market economy because nowadays in 2010 more than 90% of the

countries of the world have chosen the powers of demand and supply to rule their

economies.

39
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/key/global.htm


In terms of the three leading international organizations which are dealing with economic

and trade relations all over the globe, they are talking about economic integration, free

trade, reducing the role of intervention of states in the economy. This work is undertaken

by the IMF, WTO and WB. There is not much choice for countries: they don’t have many

options but these countries are under internal stresses coming from the social costs for

economic reforms and the international pressures of free trade. Globalization works

against policies that protect goods produced inside a country and in favor of cheaper

goods coming from outside. The country faces penalties from WTO and, if it follows

what the WTO says, it will mean ruining internal industry. If we apply the same on the

core organization in my research – the WB – this means that some countries find

themselves obliged to have more intervention in economic policies to face the social

prices of liberalizing the economy because countries cannot just be changed in a few

years; you cannot ask the people of these countries to forget the role of the state within a

few nights, after the great intervention of states in their daily lives that has endured for

decades.40

But there is an international trend of having economic policies that have some social

trends or impacts. This is greatly influenced by the WB: according to the World Bank, its

mission is

40

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~piPK:36602~theS

itePK:29708,00.html


a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around

the world. Our mission is to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for

lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by

providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships

in the public and private sectors.41

But in my humble opinion, all the strategies to fight poverty and any other social impacts

on economic policies are within – and I do stress this – the free market economy and

economic liberalism. The equation includes complicated factors: it is a mixture between

economic, social, political and humanitarian factors. This then leads to the next part of

my final analysis in which how I address how Egypt would react to such an international

environment.

2. Has Egypt followed the WB? And what about the social and political prices?

3. Is there another option for Egypt?

The Government of Egypt is under huge pressure because, on one side, it has chosen

free-market liberalization as an economic policy but this policy has its social

consequences (for instance, there is a huge number of Egyptians who are dependent on

government subsidization for many goods and services starting from the bread they are

eating on a daily basis to the gasoline which is used in vehicles).

41

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~piPK:36602~theS
itePK:29708,00.html


One of the definitions of the science of politics, as Aly Eldin Helal mentions,42 is how the

state distributes the resources, whether these resources are physical (e.g., materials or

even rare resources); therefore according to him, the political system is a tool to distribute

resources between social classes of the community and, as such, the annual budget is a

very important political document because it shows the priorities of the political elite.

According to Helal – and I completely agree with him – Egypt faces this issue from

different angles:

1. the pressures facing the middle class (e.g., civil servants, armed forces

and police): this class was a central pillar in the political system since the 1952

revolution, therefore any deterioration affecting this class will lead to a threat

to political and social stability.

2. the new capitalist classes which had an increasing role recently,

especially in the economy, are trying to have a parallel political power to be

added to their economic power.

3. the issue of the relation between the state and the market – or in other

words the relation between the decision-makers in economy and the people

who benefits from these decisions (especially when we see now some

businessmen are members of the government) – this relation could lead to more

control to manage such a kind of relation.

42
Dr. Aly Eldin Helal, The Egyptian Political System 1981-2010 (source in Arabic).


To sum up these factors: we could say that the one-party political system in most cases

has a direct relation with the full control of the state over the economy and, on the other

hand, the political pluralism has a direct relation with taking the dynamics of the capital

market and more involvement in international political economy. But what is mentioned

in the previous paragraph doesn’t mean the complete withdrawal of the state but it

stresses the need for reorganizing the relation between the state and the economy.

Therefore the government is under huge pressures from different parties: on one side, the

low-income population, second the middle class which is diminishing, on the third side

the private sector which is beginning to take a more leading role in the economy; so much

so the government is paving the way for the private sector and the dynamics of supply

and demand, and at the same time it didn’t lift its hand from the economy. However, this

is the dilemma because if the government lifts its hand completely, there will be more

corruption in dealing with economic affairs and corruption eats the fruits of economic

development in a way that the ordinary person will not feel progress in the economy (a

progress indeed which all international indicators register).

That is to say, Egypt is trying to maneuver between itself – and here we talk about a

mixture between internal, regional and international levels of analysis:

1. first, for the internal level, we have several tips: poverty + economic

reform + political reform;

2. second, on the regional level we find: deteriorating situation in the middle

east + weakness in Arab regional economic integration;


3. finally, if we move to international level of analysis, we will find theses

elements: pressures on economic reform + pressures to fasten political

reform + interference in internal affairs with or without planned political

agendas + plus pressures on the country due to its role as a leading

developing country at the regional and international levels.


4. Economic integration in the Middle East and its Future with Regard to the

Deterioration in the Peace Process


This final part is trying to link between the previous parts of the thesis: how, in my

opinion, there is a direct link between internal economic reform and regional economic

integration. And it’s a two-way situation: this means economic reform in Egypt is

strongly related to the situation in the Middle East because, if there is regional stability in

the region, this would mean more foreign direct investments in Egypt and more trade

between the region and Egypt and between the region and the World.

Let’s now touch the issue from a broader view: the current situation in the Middle East is

not a good attractor of foreign investments for the whole region. This means less trade,

less agriculture products and less industrial progress, and overall less regional projects

that use natural resources in the region.

Understanding the direct relation between social, economic and political factors in the

region will lead to admitting the fact that the region has had a protracted dispute since the

establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; effectively, this means more than 60 years of

deterioration in the situation of the region. According to the World Bank, the MENA(

Middle East and North Africa ) region is a middle-class region but, let’s agree on the fact

that according to the Bank, Egypt is making progress wth its internal economic policy

and it is on the right track but I would say that the success Egypt is achieving is in the

short and medium terms because, for the benefit of Egypt and the region in the long term,

the country is achieving economic integration but this wont be possible without solving

the political situation and achieving peace – and this means solving the Israeli-Palestinian

Dispute over the lands of Palestine and solving the problem of the occupied territories in

Syria and Lebanon also. And, according to the Arab countries, they had a peace initiative

in 2004 calling upon all parties to resolve these problems, then peace will happen


between Arab countries and Israel and then there might be a possibility of normalization

of relations, and this normalization means that would be normal diplomatic relations

between countries which would include cooperation in the future. But, as we have seen,

the situation has deteriorated more and more nowadays in a way that throws away any

hope for peace in the region, and what was achieved until now by signing the Egyptian-

Israeli peace agreement in 1979, and choosing the track of negotiations which started in

the Madrid Conference in 1991 and all the developments after that – all this is at high

risk.

‫ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

‫ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

‫ــــــــــــــ‬


Bibliography

Books

 Helal, Aly Eldin, Egyptian Political System 1981-2010 (source in Arabic)

 Marshall, Katherine, The World Bank from Reconstruction to Development to Equity,

Global Institutions, Routledge, 2008.

 MENA Development Report, “From Privilege to Competition”, 2009.

 O’Brien, Robert and Williams, Marc Global Political Economy, Palgrave MacMillan,
UK, 2004.

 Phillips, David A., Twenty Years of Trial – and Error, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Other Sources

 Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2006/9/23/ECON2.HTM, source in Arabic.


 Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2008/12/8/FRON6.HTM, source in Arabic.




 Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2009/12/14/EGYP2.HTM, source in Arabic.

 Ahram , http://www.ahram.org.eg/81/2010/02/18/5/8077/219.aspx, source in Arabic.

 Ahram, http://www.ahram.org.eg/119/2010/03/28/11/13355/219.aspx, source in Arabic.




 http://www.al-bab.com/arab/econ/suleiman.htm

 http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19660

 http://www.cabinet.gov.eg/Upload/Ad/GovPerformance/index.html

 http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/egy_aag.pdf

 http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/egy_aag.pdf

 http://ddp-
ext.worldbank.org/ext/ddpreports/ViewSharedReport?REPORT_ID=1336&REQUEST_
TYPE=VIEWADVANCED

 http://finance.mapsofworld.com/economy-reform/egypt/

 http://finance.mapsofworld.com/economy-reform/egypt/challenges.html

 http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/key/global.htm
 http://www.investment.gov.eg/en/Publications/PeriodicPublications/Quarterly%20Public
ations/Q1-Ar.pdf

 http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/servlet/OEDSearchServlet

 http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue3/jv10no3a4.html

 http://www.mof.gov.eg/English/Pages/Selected-Economic-Indicators.aspx

 http://www.mof.gov.eg/MOFGallerySource/English/Egypt%20Economic%20Outlook-
%20September%202008.pdf

 http://news.egypt.com/en/200907066683/news/-business/financial-crisis-impact-
continues-to-2010-egypt.html

 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/

 http://www.sis.gov.eg/Ar/LastPage.aspx?Category_ID=410

 http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5309.htm

 http://www2.sis.gov.eg/Ar/Economy/introdaction/Development/050101000000000003.ht

m)


 http://www.shorouknews.com/ContentData.aspx?id=36142

 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22541126~pag
ePK:34370~piPK:42770~theSitePK:4607,00.html

 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/EGYPTEX
TN/0,,menuPK:287179~pagePK:959718~piPK:141116~theSitePK:256307,00.html

TN/0,,contentMDK:22419377~menuPK:287179~pagePK:2865066~piPK:2865079~theSi
tePK:256307,00.html

tePK:256307,00.html

tePK:256307,00.html

tePK:256307,00.html

 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/0,,menuPK:177680~pag

ePK:169643~piPK:169646~theSitePK:136917~PAGESIZE:10~COUNTRYCODE:EGT,

00.html?countrylist=EGT

 http://www-
wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSite
PK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187282&theSitePK=523679&enti
tyID=000011823_20060829115639&searchMenuPK=64187282&theSitePK=523679

 http://www-
PK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187282&theSitePK=523679&enti
tyID=000011823_20060829162134&searchMenuPK=64187282&theSitePK=523679

 http://www-
PK=523679&menuPK=64187282&region=&cntry=82608&topic=644279&lang=&sortD
esc=DOCDT&pageSize=10&dAtts=DOCDT,REPNME,REPNB,DOCTY,DOCNA,LAN
G,OWNER,ORIGU,VOLNB&siteName=WDS&callBack=null


 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=17&sid=2f73b1d3-
7273-439a-935c-4bf2597fdeb0%40sessionmgr11

 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=104&sid=5d02e402-
ece2-478c-ab63-dbdacea6b09f%40sessionmgr14

 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&hid=10&sid=9f3a4cff-
8ab8-4134-bea9-e047562fb13b%40sessionmgr113

 http://website1.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2003-3/conference-2003-3-
papers/Burnell-2807.pdf

 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~
piPK:36602~theSitePK:29708,00.html.

 (http://www-

wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2001/06/29/00009494

6_01061404112783/Rendered/INDEX/multi0page.txt

 (http://www-

wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2005/06/24/00001200

9_20050624102618/Rendered/INDEX/321900rev3.txt

 http://web.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=51187349&piPK=51189435&t

heSitePK=256307&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=4962310&theSitePK=256307

&entityID=000333038_20081024013450&searchMenuPK=4962310&theSitePK=25630

7 (source in Arabic)

.‫ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

‫ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

‫ـــــــــــ‬


World Bank's Economic Policy in Egypt 2000-2010: Political Impact

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to World Bank's Economic Policy in Egypt 2000-2010: Political Impact

Similar to World Bank's Economic Policy in Egypt 2000-2010: Political Impact (20)

More from Abdelhamied El-Rafie

More from Abdelhamied El-Rafie (20)

World Bank's Economic Policy in Egypt 2000-2010: Political Impact