An article by Amal Shafik , PhD from Cairo, Egypt, doing research on Health systems in developing countries

As I ponder the story of Community-based Health Insurance (CBHI) I am reminded of a telling scene in a movie I watched three years ago, where the leader of a war, after losing many battles and wasting the lives of thousands of men, asks his lieutenant: “Remind me again why we are here?” In the midst of all the battles, war itself became the goal . After engaging in battle after battle, the ultimate goal of reaching stability and peace was forgotten. In other words the means became the end.

Similarly, in many CBHI schemes, the multitude of logistical exigencies of initiating the scheme  as well as managing and maintaining its operations,  seem to almost inevitably overshadow the purpose for which the scheme was originally conceived—the health and well being of a  specific community and its members. Moreover, there is a lot of rigidity in the ways how CBHI is currently being...

The long-expected devaluation of the Egyptian pound is finally taking place. The pound has undergone its greatest devaluation against the US dollar since the 25 January revolution, falling from LE5.90 to about LE6.60 in a little over a month.

In this context, the pound has hit a historical low against the dollar and the euro since 2003, when the decision of floating the pound was first made. The question raised is why now, and not before, given the constant and continuous decline in the country’s foreign reserves since January 2011?

The pound is subject to an exchange system of managed floating. According to such a setting, the pound is left to float, so its value is primarily decided by the forces of supply and demand.

However, the Central Bank of Egypt manages the price through constant regulatory intervention so as to stabilize the pound value and fend off speculative attacks. In the past, the Central Bank would deploy some of the foreign reserves at critical times to increase the supply of dollars in a manner that would reduce the run on US dollars and thus save the pound value.

The Brotherhood points to the Turkish experience over the past 10 years as a model, but events bring Egypt closer to the Turkey of the 1980s in the aftermath of a military coup

The Muslim Brotherhood have often invoked the Turkish experience under the Justice and Development Party as their model. They point to Turkey as a successful case of reconciling Islam with capitalism, democracy and pro-western policies.  Moreover, it is seen as a success story of civilian rule subjugating military power after decades of continuous military intervention in politics. With the large role that the military has in military in Egyptian politics, the Brotherhood were hoping to follow the Turkish model of gradual democratisation.

The Justice and Development Party’s grip on power in Turkey has strengthened since 2008.  A number of generals were tried for the first time in the country’s history after their implication in an attempted coup. In 2009, the Turkish constitution was amended to further empower the parliamentary majority. The following year, the Justice and Development Party won the absolute majority in the national elections for the third time in a row. In 2011 the generals behind the 1980 coup were put on trial, undermining the very legitimacy of the military ‘corrective’ intervention that marked Turkish political life since the 1960s.

The Brotherhood...

The Ministry of Health conducts a Demographic and Health Survey every three years. It is the only comprehensive national survey to give a panoramic view of the demographic and health reality in Egypt. The ministry always commissions El-Zanaty and Associates to conduct the survey, which is funded by USAID and supported by UNICEF. Egypt's DHS is part of the MEASURE DHS project, a USAID project which aims at generating information to help guide policies and plans on nutrition, population and various health issues, especially reproductive health, as well as monitoring and evaluating these policies.

The project began worldwide in 1984 to provide assistance to developing countries, and has earned a high reputation for the validity and quality of the data it collects. In Egypt, household surveys began in the eighties and the most recent DHS was released in 2008. Data from these surveys provided insights about child mortality, fertility, family planning, HIV and other emerging health issues such as Hepatitis C, or Avian influenza. For the last three decades, such surveys have been an indispensable resource for any researcher in the fields of health, gender, sexuality or nutrition. It...