Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human rights continued the implementation of seminars for citizens, which aims to raise awareness of decentralization and its social and political variables, as well as monitoring and discussing the problems associated with the citizens to public services and the role of local authorities in its face.
The Foundation held three panel discussions: The first was held at Al-Basateen in Cairo Governorate on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 in collaboration with the Foundation for Human Development. The second held at the center of Atfih in Cairo Governorate on Tuesday May 8, 2012 in collaboration with Yalla Nesharek Association for Social Development. The third seminar also held at Sharquia Governorate on May 9, 2012 in collaboration with the Youth Association of Sharquia for Development The seminars are taken place in the context of the activities of the citizen's voice project (2) which is implemented by Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights with the support of the Foundation for the Future, which seeks to build the capacity of various community parties in dealing with decentralization and the development of effective and innovative mechanisms to monitor the needs of citizens and to assess the quality of public services provided by the executive bodies. The project also works to promote a culture of decentralization in the Egyptian community and the effective employment for the local and the public media in support of decentralization and monitor the needs of citizens.
The seminars are considered one of the components of a program of raising citizens' awareness of decentralization in five governorates, which is targeted to reach about ten thousand people through public panel discussions and simplified manuals, along with an unlimited number of Internet users through the citizen's voice which is broadcast on Radio Maat electronic magazine and electronic citizen's voice issuing from the project.
Seminars include open simplified dialogue on decentralization and good local governance and variables associated with them, and the rights of the citizen to the views of local government in light of decentralization, and the responsibility of these parties for the provision of public services by appropriate quality. It also includes a presentation of the services that will take responsibility for their performance entirely on local government.
The seminar that was held in Al-Basateen district discussed problems. Many of the most important was "law of rental housing, which adds a relative increase in the value of the rent annually, which represents the strain to the shoulders of the citizens. The participants spoke about the problem of clogging its network of sanitation and its continuing rash, which leads to the spread of diseases, and epidemics problem as well as the problem of garbage blocking the streets until the main ones.
In the center of Atfih, participants spoke about the problems of agricultural irrigation banks, high water table, and non-paved roads, and intransigence in the delivery of utilities for buildings, as well as the lack of quality of seeds and fertilizers.
The problems at the center of Belbeis in Al-Sharquia Governorate included the neglect of youth activities and lack of attention to it although that young people are the pillars of the future and the proliferation of the thugs in the streets, flooded agricultural land with wastewater, favoritism in hiring, and the garbage problem which covered the streets. Also the problem of sawdust thrown between homes leading to shortness of breath
It is expected to be included all of these problems in the reports of the situation of economic and social development to be prepared by Maat during the next phase. The participants agreed at seminars on the need to move on more than one level to solve these problems, through the People's Committees as well as potential candidates for the boards of the local people, and put their problems on the table of mass media and documenting violations through sound and image in order to have the pressure on officials to act positively to resolve these problems.