Grounding Political Change in Egypt:
The Public Interest, Local Roots of Democracy, and the Right to the City
While national electoral politics and the struggles between state institutions and protesters have been dominating headlines from Egypt, Egyptian citizens have been organizing to address chronic problems in their communities. Despite overwhelming obstacles, these local initiatives are challenging longstanding urban governance and planning norms in Egypt and are attempting to claim their right to enjoy liveable cities and communities.
Please join TADAMUN: The Cairo Urban Solidarity Initiative`s project leaders, Professor Diane Singerman and Kareem Ibrahim as well as Junaid Ahmad, Director of Sustainable Development, MENA Region of the World Bank and Adel Iskandar, Fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University to discuss some of these initiatives as well as the larger, pressing questions about local government reform, decentralization, the prospects of democracy in Egypt, the outlook of urban development, and economic policies that may help create more equitable, inclusive communities in Egypt.
- Date: Monday, March 3, 2014
- Time: 12:00am - 2:00pm
- Location: American University, Main Campus
- SIS Building, Abramson Family Founders Room
Get directions here or at Google Maps here
So that we may better plan for the event, RSVPs are appreciated! Please RSVP at EventBrite, Facebook, or email us at stanek@american.edu.
Can`t make it to American University for the event? No problem. The event will be live-streamed and you can send in your questions to the panelists via Twitter. More information to follow.
Want to know more about Tadamun? Visit our webpage at www.tadamun.info.
Diane Singerman is Associate Professor in the Department of Government, School of Public Affairs at American University. Among her publications are Cairo Contested: Governance, Urban Space, and Global Modernity, (ed., 2009), Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East (co-edited with Paul Amar 2006), and Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (1995).
Kareem Ibrahim is the Director of Takween Integrated Community Development based in Cairo, Egypt. Mr. Ibrahim is an architect and urban planner who worked on the UNDP`s Historic Cairo Rehabilitation Project. He has also worked for Aga Khan Trust for Culture - Egypt between 1997 and 2010 as the Built Environment Coordinator of the Darb al-Ahmar Revitalization Project, one of Cairo`s most ambitious urban revitalization programs.
Discussants:
Junaid Ahmad, is Director, Sustainable Development for the Middle East and North Africa Region at the World Bank. He is responsible for the Bank’s portfolio in MENA covering infrastructure, urban, natural resources, social development and decentralization and local government and has worked on these issues in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. Mr. Ahmad was one of the co-authors of the 2004 World Development Report - Making Services Work for Poor People. He is co-founder of Bangladesh’s first private university, North South University.
Adel Iskandar is a scholar of Arab studies whose research focuses on media and communication. He is the author, coauthor, and editor of several works including Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism, Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (University of California Press), and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween Publishing). His most recent publication is the authored anthology Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution (AUC Press). Iskandar teaches at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Communication, Culture, and Technology program at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
TADAMUN: The Cairo Urban Solidarity Initiative is a project of the School of Public Affairs at American University, supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation and implemented by American University and Takween Integrated Community Development (Cairo). The project is also supported by NOREF, the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre.