The Habitat International Coalition and affiliate civil society organizations have submitted an analytical report to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) for its current review of the state party: Egypt. The collective report focuses especially on the implementation of the human right to adequate housing, as enshrined in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The report assesses the report submitted by the Arab Republic of Egypt in the first stage of the state party’s periodic review process before CESCR.
Because the state party failed to submit its mandatory reports for the intervening five-year periods since its last review in 2000, the current report of Egypt [Arabic] has combined the second, third and fourth periodic reports in the one submitted to CESCR in December 2010.
That seemingly outdated State party report—issued prior to major political changes in the country—remains no less relevant to the ongoing review of the Covenant’s implementation, according to the joint CSO report. The authors note that, despite regime changes and a new Constitution, housing, urbanization and land-use policies and practices have remained unchanged since the state’s late-2010 report.
Along with this continuity, however, the CSOs report that some notable new dynamics have emerged. The report explains, for example, that the former ruling party that dominated public institutions has been disbanded, giving way to administrative ambiguity amid new social formations. Some “popular committees” have assumed prominence and new forms of participation in public life.
Presenting this dynamic in the frame of the ICESCR, the collective HIC report first addresses the over-riding implementation principles, enshrined in Articles 1–5 of the Covenant, as they relate to the human right to adequate housing in Egypt. Then the report assesses the government report before CESCR and provides additional information about the state performance affecting the human right to adequate housing and equitable access to land, as it relates to the right to an adequate standard of living for Egyptians. Each theme presented in the HIC partners’ report is followed by sample questions for the State party, in order to assist in the Committee’s review at the next phase.
The present CSO report includes contributions from the Egyptian Center for Civic and Legislative Reform, New Woman Research Center, Committee for the Solidarity with Egyptian Peasants for Agrarian Reform, Socialist Lawyers Committee and the Habitat International Coalition. Its production followed a two-day training workshop on “Parallel Reporting to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Cairo, 19–20 March 2013, organized by HIC and Amnesty International and delivered by Habitat International Coalition, in cooperation with the Development Support Center Consultancy & Trading (Cairo). The workshop provided technical guidance in parallel reporting for 22 local CSOs, including 16 NGOs and six popular committees.
The HIC submission and its sample questions are intended to aid the Committee and its Secretariat to focus on relevant issues arising from the State party report and, especially, to provide information omitted in the Egyptian government report and other submissions to CESCR. The CESCR’s list of questions, which the Committee issued on 10 June 2013, will frame the state’s formal replies, which will be the subject of the “constructive dialogue” between CESCR and the state delegation in November 2013.
Download the HIC partners report (in English) from the CESCR website and from HIC-MENA.