Latest in Tag: Iris Boutros Highlight
Latest in Tag: Iris Boutros
Disappointment, in football and life
The 28 year-old star has been a professional footballer since he was 16, and has since made over 500 Premier League appearances.
South Africaâs youth employment bill
In May of 2012, a violent clash erupted between protesters and the opposition. Although this sounds like a fairly common news report from Egypt these days, the incident in fact took place in South Africa. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), took to the streets to march …
âLet them eat cakeâ, part 2
When Gouda Abdel Khalek was Minister of Supply in March of 2012 he made a very ânovelâ suggestionâ not the good kind of novel. At the time, Egyptâs food subsidy programme supplies were woefully insufficient to feed the millions of Egyptians benefitting (in theory) from the assistance. With some governorates having no rice for distribution …
The difference between Reform and reform
âTo better serve farmers.â The goals are a more productive agricultural sector and improved food security for Egyptâs population. Key is improving the services of the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC), said Minister of Agriculture Ayman Abu Hadid, speaking on the sidelines of the 10th Ministerial Meeting of the International Centre for …
Meet Reem
Reem is a cleaning lady and a mother of four. She has been married twice though neither ex-husband supports his children financially or otherwise. Reem is on her own raising her children. Reem is among the working poor. Although she works full time, she barely meets basic needs. All four of her children show signs …
Englishman in New York
Would you like this delivered? It was a normal question in Cairo. But in Brooklyn, New York, my friend was a little surprised. New York City residents do boast about being able to have anything delivered. But, if McDonaldâs doesn’t have 24-hour delivery, how much can they really boast? After a trip to the other place he calls home, an Egyptian-American friend was talking about the conveniences he enjoyed while being back in New York and how they compare to Cairo. …
Inclusive entrepreneurship
Gedety was too good to be true. Yasser El Zahhar, its founder, had the idea to start a social business that would employ non-working Egyptian women to make products that working Egyptian women could use to make quick, but healthy meals for their families. All he would need to do is buy his agricultural …
Will women Rise Up as Egyptâs entrepreneurs?
Rise Up, Egyptâs first major entrepreneurial summit held in Cairo on November 24-25 was a resounding success. It brought together many different and important players from the entrepreneurial ecosystem: investors, accelerators, corporates, civil actors and entrepreneurs. Between the panels, talks, workshops, hackathons, makeathons, and ideathons, it was hard not to be inspired or to …
The social businesses to turn Egyptâs black skies blue
Itâs that time of year. Black skies over Cairo and all over Egyptâs Delta mean the rice farmers are burning their straw. They will be burning about four millions tonnes of rice straw these recent weeks so they can prepare their fields for the next planting season. While weâre all struggling a little bit harder …
Egyptâs veil of ignorance and the social contract
â[A]pply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? …
Powering economic equality: GE, Ashoka Changemakers and social entrepreneurs
Three social entrepreneurs will receive cash prizes from GE and Ashoka Changemakers in the Women Powering Work competition for innovations that will advance economic opportunities for women in the MENA region. Better integrating women in the labour market is good for all. When women have more cash, they better invest in nutrition, health and education. …
Egyptian female youth and their labour market
Recently, I was stunned. I had quite a surprising experience while interviewing a young, Egyptian woman for a basic entry-level analyst-type position. From my perspective, the interview was going well. The young woman was bright and seemed to have many of the qualities I was looking for in a candidate. As we were wrapping up, …
Social enterprises: The missing piece to protecting Egyptâs natural treasures?
Social enterprises could be powerful implementers of Minister Iskandarâs longer-term environmental agenda, particularly for protected areas and ecotourism development.
Getting in the way: politics and doing business in Egypt
âIf it bleeds, it leads.â That news industry fundamental is Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazouâs October 7 morning business challenge. The leading stories by news agencies all over the world about the clashes that erupted in Cairo and other parts of Egypt on 6 October, Armed Forces Day, make his job more difficult. The repeated …
The Egyptian and Californian tomato farmers and the galabaya mafia
âI am a farmer. My father was a farmer. My grandfather was a farmer. But I only now learned how to farm.â These are the proud words of an Egyptian small farmer whose tomato yields topped those of a typical Californian farmer. And proud he should be. He produced 82 tons of tomatoes per feddan …
The âminimum wageâ defeat for ten million
There have been mixed reactions to this weekâs announcement of a new public sector minimum total income of EGP1,200 per month to come into effect in January of 2014. Many are unsatisfied â unsatisfied with the EGP1,200 figure, the target of total income and not wage, or the meeting of the social justice objective. Some …
Education, a waste of money?
âZahma moot, (it is very crowded) and itâs not yet 9 AM.â The taxi driver is complaining. Traffic is already gridlocked early in the morning (yes, Egyptians consider 9 AM early). And then he asks, âhow bad is it going to be when schools open?â It got me thinking; maybe schools should be cancelled all …
Stop the battle cries, people need hope
The gas bill collector cried at my door. He is not a young man but an Egyptian man in his mid-forties, who is a husband and a father. Culturally, men are not supposed to cry, but nevertheless, he did. He fought the tears in his eyes and the lump in his throat and lost. He …
More than 700 million worth of positive signals in Egypt
The âEgypt Supportâ Fund, the 306306 account, has exceeded EGP 700m according to Ashraf El-Araby, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, in the less than two months since its creation. Two other similar funds had been established since the start of the January 25th Revolution in Egypt with comparatively little success in fund raising. I …
Egyptian opinion on sit-in dispersals: Finding truth in reported facts
A recent poll suggests that 67% of Egyptians are âsatisfied with the mannerâ in which security forces dispersed the sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda Square. Meanwhile a different poll suggests that 79% of Egyptians believe the âmassacresâ on 14 August were âcrimes against humanityâ. These two polls seem to be presenting contradictory facts about …
#Egypt needs more #facts
Egypt needs fewer rumours and more facts, writes Iris Boutros
30 June and rights in Egypt
What do Egyptians mean when they say they want their rights, Iris Boutros asks?
Opportunity as social justice
Interim president Adly Mansour gave an excellent interview on state TV Saturday. He was very frank and clear about major challenges Egypt faces. A high priority for him is the implementation of the law on minimum and maximum wages. Setting a minimum wage is the government trying to guarantee âbreadâ. This is the minimum level …
First the push, then the pull
Economies, like relationships, require a good feeling. The best relationships draw you in, and you really enjoy the happiness and value  you get from them. Less good ones can drive you away, and while you get something out of them, you are not very drawn into them. Economies are kind of like that. Some pull …
Information, not democracy, is necessary for a strong economy
How democratic last weekâs events in Egypt were will continue to be debated. Democratic or not, this is an excellent opportunity to set the economy in a better direction. Information will be critical for improving the economy. It will also give credibility to these events as being part of a democratic process. Democracy is not …
Police uniforms and accountability
People are angry and protesting in Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Greece, Spain, and many other places. But it was the protests in Berlin, Germany a short time back that caught my attention. It was not the issues people were protesting about, but the police uniforms that were striking. It was a simple but brilliant …
30 June business risks
Planned protests mean 30 June will be a big day in politics for Egypt. For companies, it increases short-term risks and challenges of doing business, largely because of the disruptions. Things can start to improve if the day and the Tamarod campaign are successful in moving Egyptian leaders representing different interests towards honest dialogue. Until …
The Egypt-IMF loan negotiation: The soap opera continues
Watching Egyptâs negotiation with the IMF for a proposed $4.8bn loan has been like watching a daytime soap opera. New characters are added to the main plot while old characters fade into the background, but the storyline remains largely unchanged. Every episode introduces a bit of new drama with no resolution of the main conflicts …
While the world succeeds in battling poverty, Egypt fails
By Iris Boutros Between 1990 and 2010, nearly 1 billion people were pulled out of extreme poverty globally. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving global poverty between 2000 and 2015 has been achieved five years early, surpassing the progress seen in achieving any of the other MDGs. This week, key politicians and officials …
Reducing risks: Wheat supply in Egypt
Wheat supply matters for Egyptâs food security. Production is high but demand is higher. Self-sufficiency in wheat is not a realistic goal given limits in water and land, as well as dismal agricultural investment levels. So, imports are high. Risks from both domestic and international wheat markets coupled with reduced purchasing power from the current …