WHERE GOES EGYPTIAN MIGRANTS RETURNING FROM LIBYA?

WHERE GOES EGYPTIAN MIGRANTS RETURNING FROM LIBYA?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

It seems that Egypt has become a catch basin for expatriates who were chased by the ghosts of the conflicts in Tunisia and Libya. The latter conflict has been particularly traumatizing, so a little empathy from any observer will lead to the conclusion that any migrant that sought shelter in neighboring countries wouldn’t eye going back to the source of that trauma.

Many migrants who escaped from the Libya crisis were actually Eqyptians, and so it pays to know the consequences of the conflict on them. They left Egypt for greener pastures, and were then unexpectedly yanked out of their productive pursuits in their host country to return empty-handed aside from tagging along the spectre of traumas that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Below is a briefer on the subject from the IOM.

[Philippines, 29 November 2011]

Source: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/press-briefing-notes/pbnAF/cache/offonce/lang/en?entryId=30892

IOM Survey Finds Egyptian Migrants Returning from Libya in Need of Assistance to Start New Life

Posted on Tuesday, 01-11-2011

Egypt - An IOM survey on the socio-economic profile and needs of Egyptian migrants who have returned home because of the crisis in Libya reveals that most of them require support to restart their lives in Egypt.

The survey is based on a questionnaire distributed randomly to 1,283 Egyptian migrant workers during their evacuation from Tunisia and Misurata to Egypt and on focus group discussions organized by IOM in the Upper Egypt Governorate of Fayoum from where many of the migrants came and have returned to. Additional data from this survey was also obtained from the Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Emigration.

The study confirms that the crisis in Libya, which triggered the return of an estimated 200,000 Egyptian migrant workers, continues to have a negative impact on poor and vulnerable families and communities, especially in chronically food insecure areas such as the Fayoum Governorate. Most respondents were semi-skilled adult males who said they had been supporting dependants through remittances, which have now dried up.

When asked about the future, 75% of respondents said they intended to remain in Egypt and seek work or start-up businesses. In some cases, the decision to remain in Egypt was linked to hopes that socio-economic development will take place alongside Egypt's political transition. In other cases, returnees said that the trauma and suffering they had experienced or witnessed as they fled Libya influenced their decisions to remain in Egypt.

Despite different motivations, the majority of those who preferred to remain in Egypt said they needed assistance to access financial services and assistance to start-up or reactivate their businesses. The survey found that financial assistance to start private enterprises was largely preferred over additional education and training because of the need for immediate access to income.

Prior to the crisis, Libya was an important source of employment for between 1 and 1.5 million Egyptians who remitted an estimated 33 million USD every year.

The survey is available online at: http://www.egypt.iom.int/publications.htm

For further information please contact:

Mathieu Luciano
IOM Egypt
Tel: +202 273 651 40/1 Ext. 391
+20 101 62 555 00
E-mail: mluciano@iom.int

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SCIENCE MAPPING IN EGYPT

SCIENCE MAPPING IN EGYPT

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

A science mapping is being undertaken in Egypt today, which aims to know and concur benefits from the thousands of PhD theses done by Egyptians inside and outside the country.

It has been lamented that Egyptians generated around 50,000 PhD theses and spent millions of dollars on the research undertakings, yet only the shelves benefit from the findings. Sad indeed, as researches must go beyond filing them in shelves and finding practical benefits as much as possible.

The lament is legitimate, as I find a parallelism in the Philippines where I taught in the University of the Philippines for almost two (2) decades. I was among those who advocated for a practical side to the sciences, so that research findings won’t just sleep in the library shelves. Same should hold true for Masteral and Doctoral theses.

Below is an update report on the current mapping undertakings in Egypt. Hopefully, other developing countries would follow suit from Egypt’s experience.

[Philippines, 17 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/egypt-completes-stocktake-of-last-20-years-of-phds.html

Egypt completes stocktake of last 20 years of PhDs

16 August 2011

[CAIRO] Egypt has compiled a database of almost 50,000 PhD theses that Egyptians have published in the past 20 years, in an effort to understand how much home-grown science is languishing unused on library shelves.

The Science Age Society (SAS) launched the database earlier this month (4 August) and will soon make it available on its website. It lists all the work done by Egyptians, inside or outside the country, as part of their PhD degrees from 1990 to 2009.

The database is the first stage of a project to map Egyptian research that is seen as essential for reinvigorating the science sector in the country.

"Our target for the Science Map Project is to contribute to building a scientific base in Egypt built on the statistical evidence," Kadria Said, executive manager of the project, told SciDev.Net.

The project is a collective effort started in August 2010 between the SAS and the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics.

"We weren't able to find any computerised database archives of academic researchers in Egypt so we began thinking of building a database that could be considered a reference for every researcher to help him both to be aware of the historical effort done in his speciality and not to repeat it again," said Hassan Abol-Enein, SAS head and director of Urology and Nephrology Center in Mansoura.

The project found 49,853 PhD theses written by Egyptians, including 2,898 theses from outside Egypt.

"All this research cost our country millions of dollars and yet Egypt gained no real benefits from them," Abol-Enein told SciDev.Net.

The next phase, which depends on winning government funding, will be to assess any benefits derived from these theses against their cost.

In the third phase, the group hopes to map all of Egypt's science research centres, categorising them and documenting their facilities.

Ali Hebeish, president of the Egyptian Syndicate of Scientific Professions, said the project is "a good start towards developing science research in Egypt, if we hope to regain Egyptian academic prestige".

He said that up to three-quarters of Egyptian researchers do their work in an academic context, for example to obtain a PhD, compared with 15 per cent of US researchers.

Mohamed Abdel-Mottaleb, director of the nanotechnology department at Nile University, said: "There is no networking or coordinating between Egyptian researchers. So having such a database, which would coordinate and ease the communication between research teams, is a very helpful effort."

But the database should be only the start, he said: "We don't need abstract statistics; we need to form networking and final recommendations after the end of this project".

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EGYPT’S CHALLENGE: SHIFT SCIENCE FROM PRESTIGE PROJECTS TO PEOPLE

EGYPT’S CHALLENGE: SHIFT SCIENCE FROM PRESTIGE PROJECTS TO PEOPLE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Egypt’s response to the need to produce more scientists within its territorial bounds is the ‘science city’. The strategy is aimed at producing more scientists in a concentrated area, with prospective researches coming from both Eqypt and other countries notably the MENA (Middle East & North Africa).

How far this strategy has been succeeding remains to be seen. Reports seem to point out the initial successes, though such achievements are now being weighed down by the seeming dis-interests of foreign participants in Eqypt-based science education.

What could be the ‘barriers to entry’ of science pursuits in the land of the late patriot Gamal Adbel Nasser? Has Egyptian science been fixated to building giant projects such as the Aswan Dam and missed out on capacity-building for its own scientists and MENA’s as well?

Below is an update report about the situation of science research in modern Eqypt.

[Philippines, 10 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/egypt-needs-science-powered-by-people-not-big-projects-1.html

Egypt needs science powered by people, not big projects

Austin Dacey

21 July 2011

Egypt's 'science city' will not build a science culture without its people empowered by academic experience abroad, argues Austin Dacey.

There was a big day for 'big science' in Egypt last month. On 1 June the Egyptian cabinet approved a budget that increased spending on science by almost one third, from US$66.5 million to US$90.5 million, and pledged to create up to 50,000 new research jobs.

The same day saw the cabinet approve the long-discussed Zewail City of Science and Technology, named after Ahmed Zewail, the Egyptian-born Nobel laureate, a professor at the California Institute of Technology and one of the first US 'science envoys' appointed by president Barack Obama's administration.

Meanwhile, in a recent editorial in Science, editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts has called for the building of a culture of science in Egypt.

But much of the emphasis in Egypt is on links with industry, not basic science, and big-budget construction projects alone will not necessarily build a science culture. For that, there is a more modest yet time-tested means: empowering individuals. And one of the best ways to empower them is through academic exchanges and scholarships for study abroad.

Promoting science culture

In 1942, the American sociologist Robert Merton investigated the "cultural structure of science", which he defined as a set of values and mores — universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism. These are "transmitted by precept and example" and "internalised by the scientist, thus fashioning his scientific conscience".

A culture of science flourishes in an environment that includes plenty of basic research, as it encourages the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, rewards imaginative trial and error, and links professional advancement to intellectual prestige among peers.

Academic exchanges with universities in Europe or the United States offer unrivalled opportunities to engage in basic science. But government partnerships with private industry — such as those being discussed by Egypt — can be expected to favour technologies with immediate commercial applications.

More importantly, education is more than the transfer of information from one mind to another. It involves acquiring new thinking habits, daily routines and dispositions of character. This kind of personal transformation takes place among people as they come to know each other and pursue collaborative ventures.

Such relationships are of paramount importance, according to Cairo-based Mohammed Yahia, editor of Nature Middle East, because "the everyday interaction between the different cultures rubs off on each other and brings them both closer".

No new cultural exchange

But Yahia has seen no increase in scholarships and visiting fellowships in Egypt in recent years.

In the 'new beginning' speech in Cairo in 2009, Barack Obama pledged that the United States would invest in the scientific future of the region. But many resources have gone to large-scale, high-profile projects such a partnership with Saudi Arabia on satellite production, a partnership with Jordan on nanotechnology, and also the science envoys.

Marking the one year anniversary of the Cairo speech, the US State Department announced that it was giving US$5 million to a programme that promotes "stronger entrepreneurial culture and entrepreneurship — with material economic impacts — across MENA [Middle East and North Africa] and Asia".

About half of that was allocated to a series of conferences in cooperation with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now renamed the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) and the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Yahia says that individual exchanges can do much more than conferences and talks. "Talking is one thing, but sharing time and effort, and working on something that is universal and bypasses cultural and language barriers, is something totally different."

Meanwhile, the US State Department has said it has yet to begin work on a 'Young Scientist Global Exchange program'.

A successful model

One model of empowerment can be found in the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which has supported international academic cooperation for more than 50 years.

In 2010, DAAD sponsored 1,184 academic exchanges between Germany and Egypt. A total of 847 Egyptian students, graduates and researchers were supported for study visits and research in Germany.

According to Michael Harms, director of DAAD's Cairo office, the vast majority of scholarship recipients return to seek work in Egypt, where they are highly successful on the job market.

This is precisely the kind of programme that should be central to Egypt's strategy for scientific development. The short-term building of technological capacity, while important, must not be pursued at the expense of long-term building of cultural capacity.

The commitments are in place. The US–Egypt Joint Science and Technology Fund, which provides research grants — and includes opportunities for junior scientist development visits — was tripled in 2010.

People first, bricks second

Zewail has said that the City of Science and Technology will "arm young Egyptian students with the modern sciences they need to compete internationally". This may be an appealing vision, but it is far from clear how the preliminary US$2 billion will be raised, when work will begin, and what precisely will take place on the 110 hectare site.

The admirable career of Zewail himself was not launched from a science city, eponymous or otherwise. Instead, he personally secured a scholarship from the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a PhD, despite bureaucratic hurdles at home.

In this, he was encouraged by his advisors, including one who had also studied abroad at the same university. Zewail understands better than most that a culture of science is not built brick by brick but person by person.

Austin Dacey is a representative to the UN for the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He writes the Circumnavigations column for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

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AFRICA ON FIRE!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Africa is on fire. From north to south, east to west of the continent, politico-military turbulences are taking place, hence tending to confuse and scale up fear among the ordinary folks of the continent.

You can go ahead and harbor your own perspective in explaining the causes of the conflicts there. You can see the conflicts from a domestic vantage point, thus explaining turbulence based on internal factors such as religious, ethnic, and geopolitical factors. You can also choose to explain them from the vantage point of a globalist, thus explicating the turbulences as offshoots of global synarchy of chaos fomented by the financier oligarchs of the West.

At a time when a new millennium is accelerating momentum, bringing forth glad tidings of prosperity and relative peace, hot fires are taking place in Africa. Whether a single set of explanations would suffice to comprehend the predominance of negative imagery in the continent would be subject of debates. What is clear first of all is that the continental imagery tends to recline on the negative which bodes ill for the Africans.

To name a few representative projections of the turbulences: growing protests in Tunisia; contested poll results in Cote d’Ivory, spiraling into civil war proportions; paper governance in Somalia where pirates abound as offshoot of a failed state; still unabated turbulence in Zimbabwe, spilling off millions of migrants to South Africa; Sudan’s split between North and South as a result of religious and ethnic divergences; and, brewing conflict between Copts and Muslims in Egypt.

Those representative turbulences alone demonstrate that in every corridor of the continent—north, east, west, south—turbulence is the pattern. The anarchy practically overshadows or masks the peace, cooperation and development now going on in countries that have struggled hard to depart from the path of failed states that were balkanized by internecine wars.

Let us take the case of the Sahara. A gigantic effort to green the historically desert region has been going on for years now, which to me is a milestone event that will reverse the age-old desertification. With the turbulences going on in the cardinal corridors of the continent, who would now care to examine and extol the very admirable eco-balancing inter-country efforts in the pan-Sahara?

Tanzania and Ghana would also be worth your enquiry. Both countries are undertaking development efforts, with external investors showing great interest in both countries as showcase of cross-border direct foreign investments. Ghana is most especially important to my beloved Philippines, as many of its leaders were schooled by top universities in Manila. Who would ever care for such exemplary developments in both countries, with the media perpetually presenting staccato and crescendo of turbulences in the continent?

Africa is indeed on fire, all of its representative regions have their respective versions of hot spots, so the situation must first of all be accepted by all stakeholders there. There must be no denying about the hot fires and brewing caldrons, so that the alternative courses of action can be configured, and the compass of peace be identified and executed.

As an external observer who is keenly interested in seeing Africa accelerate its development and poverty-reduction, I am very supportive of efforts by all stakeholders in the continent to forge ahead the agenda for stamping out hot fires, contain brewing caldrons, and prevent other fires from igniting in the foreseeable future. Africans who wish for my moral support can go ahead and let me sign advocacy positions that need the support of solidarity groups and individuals outside of the continent as I’ve done in the past.

Watching those exemplars of positive development in the continent, I am optimistic that Africans will be able to transcend their predicaments, imbroglios, and anarchies in due time. I hope that the fast rising ‘emerging markets’ in other continents would expand and diversify on their support for peace and development in Africa, and reinforce their deployment of grassroots volunteers to the continent.

To all concerned Africans, Love & Peace! You shall overcome!

[Philippines, 01 February 2011]

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