ASMAA FATHI

Cairo- Women’s organizations face many problems in putting their projects supporting women’s rights into practice due to bureaucratic barriers. Intisar al-Saeed, the founder and director of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, says women organizations wait for a long time to implement their projects and activities.

“Their activities and projects are struck due to the long bureaucratic procedures,” Intisar al-Saeed said, “Despite the existence of the exemption from tax; most senior staff know nothing about it. We, as associations, have to show them the law of associations to persuade them.”

Intisar al-Saeed thinks another barrier for associations is the lack of data about the condition in villages. “When we want to conduct a project in rural areas, we go to local councils to get information about the rates of unemployment, illiteracy and many other things; however, we cannot get any information from them.”

‘Collaboration should be strengthened

Noting that collaboration between local authorities and non-governmental organizations should be strengthened in order to contribute to the Sustainable Development Plan and 2030 Strategy and to achieve the aspirations of society, Intisar al-Saeed said, “Manual labor is another barrier faced by many NGOs. For instance, we have to copy many documents for approvals. This causes a large amount of waste paper and damages the environment. If we can submit our documents by using flash drives, it will save time, effort and paper and end the barriers that everyone suffers from.”

‘Legal procedures should end in a short time’

Intisar al-Saeed thinks that legal procedures such as completing the registration process and issuing licenses easily through notification will resolve many crises that hinder the works and efforts of women's organizations. “Legal procedures should end in a short time to solve these problems faced by NGOs. This paves the way for NGOs, especially women’s organizations to carry out more projects and activities,” she said.

‘All barriers must be lifted’

Speaking about the attacks of some members of parliament and government officials on women’s organizations, Intisar al-Saeed said, “All barriers faced by women’s organizations must be lifted so that women’s organizations can be more active.”