Preface
Talking about the political empowerment of women at the present time seems to be a tone that is no longer tempting, as it is playing on a chord that has been consumed and no new tunes are issued anymore, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the field of women was and still is the arena in which all dictatorial and authoritarian regimes practice their hobby of displaying their skills in Falsification of reality, and the claim of advocating their causes and granting them some rights, even if in a publicized form, was and still is a deceptive mask worn by these regimes to conceal the reality of their repressive and violation of the basket of other economic, social, civil and political rights and a false light that they want to attract the attention of observers and stakeholders in international organizations and the countries of the civilized world and distract them from Seeing its repressive practice in other political, social and economic fields.
If we contemplate this necessary introduction with some carefulness, we would realize the inevitability of serious discussion at this time about the real political empowerment of women in its various forms and at its gradual levels, away from the decorative campaigns and the politics of cosmetic reforms followed by the majority of the ruling regimes in the Arab world.
Hence, we present in this paper an important dimension of the political empowerment of Egyptian women, which is empowering them at the level of local government in governorates, centers, cities, neighborhoods and villages, and this dimension is gaining increasing importance at the present time due to the state’s trend towards approving more powers for local government units within a framework. It announces its desire to adopt decentralization and apply it on the ground in the next few years.
The Egyptian Ministry of Local Development is currently preparing and developing an executive action plan with timetables for the implementation of decentralization. There is a pilot application phase that lasts for 3 years in 3 sectors and 3 governorates, and the second phase is comprehensive implementation and extends for a period ranging from 5 to 10 years.
These facts reveal that the state’s tendency to decentralization is almost a reality regardless of the sincerity of the intentions in this regard, and regardless of the extent of actual preparation for this historic transformation in the system of government and whether it has prepared the equipment to face its various variables in a manner that guarantees the success of the experiment and safety. In the process of transformation.
What concerns us in this regard is the reality of women in local government institutions, with their popular and executive wings, and how will this reality interact with the decentralization variables and their givens? What is the impact of decentralization on women at the local level? All this while taking into account the nature of the cultural and social systems that are distinguished in the regions and geographical areas in Egypt, which dyes the view of the citizens of these societies in different colors, and also puts women in a position that differs from one society to another.
In this paper, we will try to identify all these dimensions so that we can come up with specific recommendations that we put before the decision-maker at the national and local levels and in front of development partners, planners and funders of development programs at home and abroad, so that they may help achieve the required political empowerment of Egyptian women at the local level in light of decentralization.
English 
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