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International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.46, 389-401
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
389
Research Article Open Access
Integration as a Significance Factor in Effective Coastal Management: Egypt
as a Case Study
Hossam Samir Ibrahim
1
, Safaa A. Ghoneim
2
1. Regional Development Department, Faculty of Regional & Urban planning, Cairo University, Egypt
2. Environmental Planning Department, Faculty of Regional & Urban planning, Cairo University, Egypt
Corresponding author email:
h1_sadeldin@yahoo.com
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol.3, No.46 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0046
Received: 17 Aug., 2013
Accepted: 16 Sep., 2013
Published: 25 Oct., 2013
Copyright
©
2013 Ibrahim and Hossein, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Ibrahim and Hossein, 2013, Integration as a Significance Factor in Effective Coastal Management: Egypt as a Case Study, International Journal of Marine
Science, Vol.3, No.46 389
-
401 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0046)
Abstract
In the last two decades, integration and collaboration have become common themes in coastal management. They are
advocated for their holistic approach that considers management outcomes rather than narrow jurisdictions of individual issues. Being
more specific; Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is a complex process with various issues to be covered and requiring a
network of agencies and policies to be integrated. Furthermore, ICZM as a tool of effective planning and management encompasses
different dimensions. Simultaneously, the integration should be territorial (comprising a delimited space), and temporal (long-term
oriented), as well as being horizontal (cross-sectoral) and vertical (involving various administrative bodies) Hence, Multi-dimensional
integration is essential for ICZM to succeed. However, achieving effective integration in coastal management is always difficult,
especially in developing countries. Egypt provides an excellent case study of this experience. Since the mid-1990s several attempts
have been made to promote ICZM in Egypt, although none have, as yet, achieved their goal of having an ICZM plan in operation.
This paper reviews ICZM process in Egypt focussing on discussing the integration between all actors to plan and implement ICZM
based on interviews with key ICZM actors as well as documentary analysis and participant observation in ICZM meetings. It seeks
through a critical evaluation to provide recommendations that could help to enhance the implementation of ICZM in Egypt and other
developing countries.
Keywords
Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM); Integration; Developing countries; Egypt
Introduction
This paper reviews ICZM initiatives in Egypt
focussing on discussing the integration. It seeks
through a critical evaluation to provide some practical
recommendations that could help to enhance the
implementation of ICZM in Egypt and other
developing countries. Therefore the paper is divided
into four sections. First section develops a conceptual
analytical framework based on the integration in ICZM.
Then a brief overview of ICZM initiatives at both the
national and local in Egypt is provided. The third
section reviews ICZM process in Egypt focussing on
discussing the integration. The data for this analysis is
drawn from a detailed evaluation of all the projects and
involved a critical examination of secondary data in the
form of minutes of meetings and documentary reviews
combined with primary data, including participant
observation of recent coastal management meetings
and detailed semi–structured interviews with 30
different participants involved in the processes. Finally
some practical recommendations that could help to
enhance the implementation of ICZM are provided.
1 Developing a conceptual framework
In this section, the nature of integration in ICZM is
displayed as the networking means in order to
understand how various actors are involved in ICZM.
The work in this section aims to answer this question:
How can the interaction between actors in the network
affect the initiating and processing of ICZM? Thus,
the section is divided into five subsections: The first
defines the integration. The second teases out the
importance of integration to coastal management. The
next subsection defines the dimensions of integration.
Then, the integration mechanisms are demonstrated.
Finally, the synopsis of this section shows how the
integration will be evaluated in the case study.
1.1 Integration context
There is an agreement among scientists, resource
managers and policy makers that an integrated