EVALUATING THE PARTICIPATION POLICY IN STRATEGIC PLANNING OF EGYPTIAN VILLAGES

Abstract

This study offers a preliminary insight into the participation policy that has been introduced into the decision-making process for strategic urban planning in Egyptian villages. Since 2004, the Egyptian government has made efforts to decentralize urban management by involving local communities in the decision-making process. We analyzed the procedures and practices of the newly adopted participation policy to improve its implementation in the future. Through an analysis of each of the steps of the participatory process, as well as interviews and the questionnaire responses from 50 Egyptian urban planners, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1) Participatory decision making presents an opportunity to solve important urban problems such as unregulated urban sprawl impinging on agricultural lands in Egypt. 2) To ensure that the participation process is fair to all stakeholders, there is a need for the implementation of participatory decision making to be refined. 3) Despite the new policy, the process of involving the community in urban planning can still only be considered to be community consultation, rather than true community participation.