Role of woman
The Party banks on women's role in society. It seeks to empower them in public life. It adopts policies that enhance women's status politically economically and socially.
NDP policies on women
The NDP knows for certain that comprehensive development is out of reach without women's participation. Accordingly, the party allocates a whole chapter to assure its belief in the importance of women's role adopting policies that mean to invigorate woman participation in public activities and embracing mechanisms that aim at empowering in all spheres.
The Party also realizes that women's conditions vary according to their age, geographical, educational and professional backgrounds. It knows that women have various needs and interests. Therefore, it has sketched out comprehensive and integrated policies to address women issues regardless of their age or status.
Knowing that the desired empowerment is a comprehensive process that requires the cooperation of all state agencies and civil society organisations, the party has embarked on a policy that ensures cooperation between the Government and the civil society in the framing, implementing and evaluating women empowerment projects.
In view of the aforementioned vision, women empowerment policies aim to achieve the following goals:
  1. Incorporating women in public policies
  2. Empowering women economically, socially and politically
  3. Increasing women participation in public life
  4. Eradicating discrimination against women
The last few years witnessed the NDP taking steps that aim to empower women in all walks of life. The National Council for Women (NCW), the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) coming into being are some of these moves. By these institutions the state aims to bridge qualitative gaps and empower women economically and politically.
Other moves include appointing Egypt's first woman judge in January 2003 and amending the Egyptian Nationality Law whereby children of Egyptian women automatically acquire the Egyptian nationality like men. The Government initiated the Family Court, which settle family and personal status disputes quickly.
Law No 11, 2004 established a special insurance fund for alimony to prevents family break-up. Gender was included in the five-year plan 2002-2007 so that qualitative gaps are bridged.
To empower women politically, the NCW established a political training center to train women on political participation and train women political cadres who run in the parliamentary and municipal council polls. The NCW also cooperates with the Interior Ministry to help women get voting cards and National Identification Numbers.
To further empower women, the NDP and its Government took number of measures, such as:
First activating women participation in small enterprises
The NDP does its utmost to empower women and it pours most of its attention in this on women's economic empowerment, especially through small enterprises that suit poor and rural women. A more active participation of women in this sector is intended to increase the number of workforce and boost employment. This would of course enhance productivity.
To get women more involved in small enterprises, the NDP has drawn up the following mechanisms:
a- Social Fund for Development
It noticed that few women benefited from loans offered by the Social Fund for Development -- women were involved in 24.4 per cent only of the projects the fund financed in the period between January 1, 1992 and February 29, 2004.
Therefore, more efforts are needed to increase women's share of the finance provided by the fund.
b- Ministry of Social Solidarity's Productive Families Programme
The Productive Family Programme is a leading project offering help in small enterprises to reduce poverty and raise standards of living.
Since it was launched in 1964 about 1.5 million families benefited from the program. The program offers technical training, raw material and machinery besides marketing through exhibitions. The Ministry of Social Solidarity tries its best to enhance women technical skills through its 340,000 training centers nationwide. However, the NDP and its Government reiterate the need to upgrade such centers. It also underscores the need to create a link between projects and market requirements through precise feasibility studies, coordination among the agencies concerned and civil society organizations to define what projects are urgently needed.
c- Civil society organizations
Civil society organizations are an instrumental tool in supporting small enterprises being in close proximity to beneficiaries and loan seekers. They are also able to monitor and follow up the progress of the ventures funded.
Civil society organisations made many successes in small project funding. However, the Party, which still views as limited the number of loans given to women, believes that more efforts are needed to extend services to include more female beneficiaries.
d- The National Council for Women
The NCW played a significant role in enlisting women in small enterprises via a number of mechanisms the most important of which are the following:
  • Founding the Businesses Center, which trains women on small enterprises
  • Listing projects that can absorb women capabilities across the nation
  • Implementing programs whereby women breadwinners obtain loans in cooperation with the Ministry of Local Development.
The NDP and its government reiterate their support for the policies of the NCW and pledge to pursue policies aiming at incorporating women in development plans and establish units to follow up women affairs in the various ministries. The NCW is due to play a principal role in monitoring and implementing policies intended to incorporate women in small enterprises.
Second, activating the role of civil society organizations in women empowerment
Voluntary social work, which complements governmental action, is an effective means to achieve social revival, progress and prosperity. Governmental efforts only are not enough to satisfy the needs of the members of the society and confront all other problems. So, voluntary work is deemed indispensable in achieving the overall goals of society.
Therefore, the NDP and its government are committed to support civil society organizations in women empowerment in the following areas:
a- Civil society organizations in women economic empowerment
  • Supporting small enterprises banking on their use for women
  • Opening the door for equal chances between men and women in economic activities especially in loans from social funds
  • Finding new funding sources to cover the cost of supporting women's participation in development
  • Making available data and technological training to increase women's active participation in
  • economic activities in the light of contemporary changes.
b- Civil society organisations in women educational empowerment
  • Coordinating the efforts of civil society organisations with state institutions to eradicate women and girl illiteracy
  • Raising public awareness about over the perils of girl school dropout and bringing girl dropouts back to schools.
  • Training teachers for them to be respond to the needs of female students
  • Drawing public attention to the need to remove stereotype perceptions about women that fill school curricula
  • Forging coordination between government agencies to include women in the training programs given to teachers
  • Devising special courses for female students who have difficulties learning and those with special needs.
c- Civil society organizations in women medical empowerment
  • Provide medical care especially mobile first aid to reduce deaths among women and girls
  • Upgrading medical care Districts which form the first defence wall for family health
  • Raising awareness about the dangers practices like women addiction and smoking
  • Providing indicators to measure women's health building women health databases in tandem with research Districts
  • Paying special attention to elderly women subjecting them regular check-ups
d- Civil society organizations in human rights
  • Eradicating women's legal illiteracy through awareness campaigns, regular conferences and symposia
  • Enhancing communication among organizations that seek to eradicate violence against women across the nation and forming pressures groups for that end
  • Drawing up programs to raise awareness about the dangers of violence against women
  • Rehabilitating female violence victims and offering them needed legal, medical, psychological help
e- Civil society organizations in women media empowerment
  • Encouraging media initiatives targeting women
  • Drawing the attention of media to the importance of the presence of a sound social fabric augmenting
    a women-positive image as far as development is concerned
  • Grooming female media cadres encouraging them to take part in framing media policies and decision-making
f- Civil society organizations in girl care
  • Sketching out strategies to address educational institutions to eradicate discrimination against female students and change the traditional stereotypes existing in school curricula
  • Protecting children against abuse applying international treaties in this regard
  • Launching media campaigns to root out practices harmful to female children including early marriages, female genital mutilation and discrimination
  • Spreading awareness in rural areas about the importance of women active participation women in society
g- Civil society organisations in women political empowerment
  • Encouraging women membership in civil society organisations especially in the leading positions
  • Creating second and third lines of female leaders so that first line leaders do not manipulate decision-making
  • Attract natural leaderships inside the local communities
  • Sharpening women leadership skills
    The vision of the NDP and its Government to support civil society organisations in women empowerment
  • Drawing up a comprehensive strategy to invigorate the role of civil society organizations in women empowerment in sustainable development
  • Encouraging women membership in civil society organizations specially on the leadership level
  • Providing necessary funding for women development activities
  • Fostering communication between civil society organisations and government bodies interested in women empowerment to facilitate an exchange of expertise and draw up joint plans to achieve desired goals
  • Helping civil society organisations to create new female leaderships and encourage them to participate in social, economic or political activities
  • Bolstering coordination between the General Federation for Civil Societies and the branches of the NCW in all provinces to encourage women to participate in the modernising of society
  • Instructing Women's Committee of the General Federation for Civil Societies to establish a network linking societies across the nation -- after conducting a survey to record all of them - to help the public benefit from their services. The committee should also follow up strategies designed to activate the role of the civil society organizations in women empowerment in cooperation with the NCW
  • Enhancing communication between the General Federation for Civil Societies, regional federations and the NCMC and the National Council for Women
  • Creating communication channels between the General Federation for Civil Societies and the secretariats of women in political parties
  • Seeking the support of foreign and domestic funding bodies to help fund a national study on the health, social, educational and economic status of girls and women to function as a guide to policy makers
Third, increasing women political participation
The NDP knows for certain that progress hinges on the extent of women political participation in public. Bolstering women political participation is part of the comprehensive political reform the Party and the Government aspire to achieve.
The Party has made many successes in this regard. Achieving equality between men and women in obtaining the nationality, the emergence of the Family Court and female judges supervising elections are examples. Other examples include wider women representation in the Shura Council and a bigger number of women enrolled in election lists.
Policies for increasing women's political participation
Though there were many successes as far as women political participation is concerned the NDP acknowledges that many other goals are yet to be reached.
That is why the NDP proposes a number of policies to remove all obstacles to women effective political participation. The proposals are:
  • Modernizing election management. This would of course encourage women to participate in election. The NDP's suggestions in this respect are:
  • Condensing elections rolls
  • Introducing the required legislative amendments to eradicating election violence which dissuades women from going to the polling stations
  • Put limits to election spending so as to reduce the control of capital and its effect on the electoral process
  • Adopting the best election system so as to increase women representation in the legislature
Fourth, the NDP's media policy to change negative perceptions about women
No doubt media brought women issues to the forefront. A variety of issues have jumped into the center of media attention after remaining untouchable for so long. Thus, a positive image of women has begun to evolve replacing negative stereotypes about women.
The NDP and the Government believe that further steps must be taken through an integral policy to alter negative perceptions affect the status of women in social development.
This policy includes the following elements:
1- Advancing media visions about women issues through the following:
  • Rearranging the agenda of women's issues in the light of definite goals that can be translated into media programmes
  • Bolstering media coordination to create a unified media policy on women
  • Finding a suitable media mechanism that brings together experts representing the various media institutions and the ministries of education, culture, religious endowments, and other concerned agencies besides Al Azhar and civil society organizations to agree on a clear-cut vision concerning the media in discussing gender issues
2- Infusing fresh blood into media discourse to change general perceptions about women's issues and gender issues, eradicate discrimination based on sex and offer equal chances for women. This can be attained through:
  • Sharpening the skills of media
  • Selecting efficient media cadres who have faith in the importance of bringing about this change
  • Selecting sources and guests who appear frequently in the media
  • Creating a special mechanism to use the results of research conducted at universities and research centers
  • Giving special attention to the image of children on media as well as maintaining a good image of both parents and careful selection of the values presented on children's programs
3- Paying special attention to TV drama through:
  • Communicating with scriptwriters to find a common ground regarding gender
  • Revising information included on the drama, which has proved the most favoured by Egyptian audience affecting their attitudes
4- Putting the needs of the targeted audience into consideration when drawing up media plans through:
  • Selecting the artistic works that attract the most audience
  • Changing the programme schedule to suit the audience
  • Paying special attention to local channels to ensure that each of them focuses on local women problems
  • Monitor the actual status of women on the ground
5- Relying on well planned media through:
  • Ensuring that each campaign has its own goals
  • Forging more Cooperation between media and direct communication channels Continual evaluation
  • Encouraging the establishment of media watches
  • Ensuring that media stick to the professional codes of ethics and encouraging the Journalists' Syndicate to bring transgressors to account.
Fifth, towards a unified personal status law
Many women and family status legislative achievements have taken place:
- Law No 1 for the year 2000 that organizes litigation in personal status cases represents a breakthrough in modernizing dispute settlement, reducing litigation costs and bringing about direct procedures besides ratifying khul' and the right to get a divorce in the orfi (unregistered) marriages
- Law No 10 for the year 2004 which came into effect in October, 2004, established the Family Court to facilitate dispute settlement in personal status issues
- Law No 11 for the year 2004 initiated a family insurance system to secure an alimony contributing to the stability of families
- Amending the Nationality Law in 2004 to offer equal chances for the children of both Egyptian men and women to get the Egyptian nationality
More efforts are needed for modernizing personal status legislation. More efforts are also needed to unify personal status legislation so that both textual and procedural aspects of legislation are addressed.
Due to the numerous problems arising from the presence of too many laws dealing with personal status issues, the NDP finds it indispensable to unify all textual laws to guarantee stability for Egyptian families in an innovative way. Accordingly, the NDP stresses the need for the new Family Law to be comprehensive to bring together all other textual laws organizing rights and duties inside the family to help judges settle disputes in cases not directly dealt with by the law.
Out of the conviction that the new law will help stabilize Egyptian families and that it is urgently needed, the NDP will soon begin sketching out proposals to bring that law into daylight through extended dialogue and consultations with civil society organ