Opinion

Out of the box!

I believe that one of the main reasons for the Egyptian socio-political dilemma is the fact that there is a huge gap between the leadership and the youth who called and will continue to call for radical reforms in their country.

The leadership in Egypt is on the “Russian front” (The 'Russian Front' is a synonym that I use for an extremely difficult confrontation – it is driven from the world war incidents taking place on the Russian front). The leadership is on the front confronting the “unrealistic high expectations of the Egyptian youth.”

The leadership, after the 2011 Awakening, was formed of a generation that is focused on identifying the best possible solutions from a list of classical Egyptian solutions (‘classical’ stands for “seen by the youth as outdated”). The Egyptian youth who are more open to the world are not going to accept the leadership’s solutions of the 1960s, 1970s or even the 1990s. The leadership is addressing the public needs using methodologies, mechanisms and solutions that are seen by the youth as tools of deepening the inefficiency of public services.

The fact that, for decades, innovation and youth participation in drawing public policies and strategies were null, the young are unable to find the right channels to voice their needs, criticism or recommendations. If the leadership is keen to address the needs of the public and establish a solid basis for civil participation, why not using the cheesy “think out of the box” technique?

Thinking out of the box, why don’t we benefit from the e-petitions system of the UK that allows people to voice their demands and give them a guarantee that if it proves to be a public demand that the leadership will study seriously and quickly?

The UK e-petitions system is an easy and personal way for influencing government and parliament in the UK. An e-petition can be created about anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in the House of Commons. The Egyptian leadership can benefit from this model.

It is just an “out of the classical Egyptian box” idea that can be developed further by experts.

Check out the UK's e-petition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Hady Agina is the Procurement and Training Manager at Support to the Egyptian-European Association Agreement Programme (SAAP)

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