Egypt

In the beginning of 2011, the Egyptian people joined the the Arab World trend of increasing demands for accountability and reforms. But after Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down, little has happened when it comes to improving human rights, democracy and women's rights in Egypt. The political situation is so far very unstable.

With a population of 80 million people, Egypt is the most populated country in the Arab region. Despite its status as a middle income country, many suffer from widespread poverty, lack of employment possibilities and inequalities in society. Discrimination against women exists at all levels of society and violence against women is widespread.

The space for civil society in Egypt is shrinking and work is increasingly difficult to undertake due to new restrictions on international development cooperation. As a consequence, several international NGOs have since 2012 closed their offices and left Egypt. A restrictive new NGO law is expected during 2017.

Diakonia has identified the most vulnerable groups in Egypt:

Together with our partner organizations, Diakonia supports the struggling democratization and reform processes at the national and local levels.

To achieve lasting improvement in people's lives, Diakonia supports work carried out on different levels of the Egyptian society by local civil society organizations. Our goals are related to promoting human rights, democracy and gender equality.

Together with our partner organizations, we are reaching out to homeless and working children, providing basic social and medical services. We provide support to our partner organizations in empowering young girls and women both at local and national level, to eradicate female genital mutilation and to reduce various forms of violence against women. Diakonia and our partner organizations now seek to support the democratisation and reform process that is ongoing in different ways.