Basic HTML Version
International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.46, 389-401
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
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another interviewee, as he stated that:
“There are
many overlaps between our work in the EMU and the
RBO work. There is no coordination between us e.g.
both of us taking samples from the lakes and analysing
the pollution levels. Furthermore, we have almost the
same monitoring mandates”
. Moreover, there is a lack
of vertical integration between the central EEAA and
the RBOs. In particular, one of the interviewees
suggested:
“in our RBO we have no idea about the
ICZM national strategy which you said is now in
progress”
. Indeed, nobody from the coastal RBOs
attended any of the three workshops for preparing the
ICZM strategy (EEAA, 2009a; EEAA, 2009c; EEAA,
2009b).
Furthermore, spatial integration is missing in Egyptian
coastal management. In particular, most of the local
ICZM projects in Egypt concentrated on the land
resources and land based pollution, however in some
cases this concentration was overstressed to a degree
that neglected the sea itself. For example, the Port
Said project concentrated on land development,
especially water irrigation and agriculture, without
considering many issues related to the sea such as sea
level rise, tourism development and the new container
traffic port (El-Quosy, 2009, IAS, 2008, Tahoun,
2007). In addition, the Port Said project area was part
of three governorates (Port-Said, Sharkia and
Dakahlia) where administrative boundaries are
completely separate and there is no integration
between these governorates. In fact, this led the
partners to concentrate only on one governorate (Port
Said) and exclude the other governorates from project
activity (AbdelWahab, 2009, IAS, 2008, SMAP, 2008).
The previous illustrated examples reinforce the idea
that Egypt is suffering from a lack of integration
across all dimensions. In this respect, El-Ghorab
(2005) emphasizes that one of the main challenges
facing ICZM implementation is the lack of integration
between different governmental agencies that are
responsible for developing and managing coastal
zones. In the same way, one of the interviewees noted
that:
“There is a lack of coordination between various
kinds of institutions (governmental, non-governmental
and private sector) which are working on, interested in,
or affected by coastal areas”
. Another interviewee
stressed that:
“Traditionally, each department’s goals
conflict with others and it becomes difficult for them
to participate in an integrated management approach,
unless there is a change in attitude”
. Furthermore,
another interviewee, who reflected the views of
several others, highlighted the fact that:
“The
mechanisms for coordination with the EEAA and with
each other are unclear”
.
In this regard, the World Bank (2005) highlights that
there seems to be a disconnection between
environmental priorities and development priorities,
and furthermore the issue of coastal zone management
remains one of the most pressing environmental
inter-sectoral problems in Egypt. Furthermore, the
coordinated actions in coastal management between
economic, sectoral ministries and local government
are irregular. In fact, the problem is due not only to
lack of coordination between departments, but also to
a lack of vertical integration between organizations. In
particular, one of the interviewees noted that:
“The
challenge of achieving integration lies in the fact that
different levels of government typically do not work
together”
. Furthermore, there is often absence of any
coordinating mechanisms to derive collective and
integrated approaches to coastal management and
there are often constraints due to overlapping,
competition, and gaps in horizontal and vertical
communication (González-Riancho et al., 2009). By
this is meant that there is no clear system to
coordinate the stakeholders or to integrate their
policies (Ibrahim & Hegazy, 2011).
In this regard, one of the interviewees stressed that:
“If we need to apply ICZM in Egypt we need
coordination bodies at all levels that are well-linked as
a network. Otherwise all our efforts will be in vain”
.
Another interviewee argued that:
“The need is urgent
to establish a mechanism to coordinate, communicate,
disseminate and harmonize the present national and
local coastal activities”
. Indeed, the participants in the
first workshop for preparing the national ICZM
strategy agreed that Egypt was, and still is, suffering
from a lack of any kind of network to help achieve the
integration and coordination between the stakeholders
at national, regional and local levels (EEAA, 2009c).
Regrettably, there is no evidence that the proposed
strategy finds a solution to this issue (EEAA, 2009b).
In this regard, one of the interviewee illustrated the
views of the others, by commenting that: “
Although
there is a significant need to create a clear mechanism