ARnet Report

Regional Network Meeting on Land Reform Middle East and Maghreb Region
09 - 13 November 1997

Introduction

On November 10 and 11, a meeting took place in Cairo, Egypt, organized by the Economic & Development Studies Centre (EDSC) , the regional coordinator of the Middle East and Maghreb Regional Node. First day of meeting was arranged for interactions with faculty and EDSC members, meeting with the Dean of Faculty of Agriculture, where EDSC is located and with EDSC staff members, preliminary discussion on the project with country coordinators, and tour to Cairo's major parameters.

The meeting of November 11, was attended by 26 individuals representing, EDSC, UNRISD, General Authority for Agrarian Reform, General Syndicate of Agricultural Workers, General Authority for Rehabilitation and Agricultural Development Projects, Central Cooperative Union, two National Coordinators from Yemen, and Morocco.

EDSC was represented by Dr Rihan, the Director of EDSC, Dr M. Nasr, the regional project coordinator and member of EDSC, and seven other staff members of EDSC.

Objectives

Objective of the meeting was to discuss objectives, methodology, exchange information, and expected output of the project on Grass-roots Initiatives and Knowledge Network for Land Reform in selected countries of the Middle East and Maghreb region.

Methodology

Dr Rihan, director of EDSC, opened the meeting welcoming the guests and explaining procedures of participating in the project. Dr Rihan mentioned also that the meeting will be focused on: (i) problems concerning land reform in the Middle East region, especially in Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen, (ii) need for the Knowledge Network, and (iii) plan of action and recommendations which can be considered as guidelines for the next Project's phase. Few conceptual and methodological issues related to the project and steps of implementation were explained by Dr Ghimire/ UNRISD. Two objectives were clearly identified for project's current stage. These are the identification and analysis of existing grass-roots organizations and initiatives in land reform and tenurial issues in Egypt, Yemen, and Morocco. This can be done through exchange of information and experiences among the three countries based on the analysis of conducted outline distributed to grass-roots in each country. Based on this, next step is to establish a knowledge Network involving Yemen, Morocco aand Egypt, coordinated by EDSC.

Dr Ghimire explained also the objectives of project's second phase, which are activating of regional and national knowledge network, selecting some grass-roots level projects in a number of node's countries, and dissemination of gained information and experiences.

Dr Nasr, the regional coordinator of the project, reported the progress and status of project's activities. He mentioned that EDSC has reviewed until now 58 previous studies related to land reform in Egypt and all land reform laws issued from 1952 till 1997. He said that statistics show that 66 percent of the cultivated area in Egypt is privately owned and 34 percent is rented. The majority of rented area (73%) is rented in cash and only 27 percent is rented by sharing crop yield, where the land owners and tenants issue is critical. Dr Nasr has also mentioned that Regular meetings were held to EDSC members in Cairo once a week to:

• Discuss concepts, objectives and methodology of the project,

• Select two national coordinators from Egypt, Yemen and Tunisian, in the Middle East and North Africa region,

• Contact selected coordinators from Yemen and Tunisian. Replace Tunisian with Morocco due to negative response from Tunisian.

• Define Egyptian grass-roots organizations to be involved in the project,

• Select representatives of national grass-roots to be invited in the regional meeting on 11.11.1997.

• Translate questionnaire sent by UNRISD into Arabic language,

• Prepare summary of project's objectives into Arabic language to be distributed to all related partners,

• Distribute invitations to all partners for attending the regional meeting,

• Prepare to 2-3 field visits to the participants of the regional meeting.

National coordinators from Egypt, Yemen, and Morocco were invited to present the state of land reform and tenurial issue in their respective countries. After that, an Arabic translation of grass-roots questionnaire was distributed, explained and discussed.

National Presentation on Land Reform

Egypt

Three presentations were made from the point of view of national organizations of agrarian reform, cooperatives, and agricultural workers.

Mr Qamoura, Chairman, General Syndicate of Agricultural Workers, explained objectives and activities of the Syndicate, which was established in 1964. Main objective of the Syndicate is to participate on the discussion of governmental plan of agricultural development projects. He mentioned that 35% of Egyptian workers are in agriculture. Agricultural workers face many problems which are negatively affecting their incomes, e.g.; 80% of them are not educated, seasonally employed, socially insured, and recorded emigrance to the cities and outside the country.

The Syndicate has offered education programs to the workers and has helped them covering more than one million workers by social insurance. Mr Qamoura responded positively to the project idea expressing this in arranging a field visit to workshop participants on the next day to visit one area, where workers issue is critical.

Mr Ismail, Chairman, General Authority for Agrarian Reform, explained the governmental program of Agrarian Reform applied since 1952. He mentioned that about one million FEDDAN (one feddan = 0.42 ha) was bought by the state to market price of 1952 and distributed to 348 thousand small farmers till 1997 with the same price of 1952. The Agrarian Reform Authority assists such small land owners participating on small agricultural enterprises to realize some profits helping them to increase standard of living. Mr Ismail expressed his willingness to cooperate with the EDSC in the project.

Mr El-Kholy, Secretary, General Cooperative Union, mentioned the difficulties resulted after applying the Agrarian Reform law of 1992 regarding the liberalization of the rental value of land. He said that Agricultural Extension Services should be provided to tenants helping them to increase land productivity, otherwise they will not be able to pay market rental value of the land. Tenants should also be supported by getting access to improved seeds and agricultural mechanization to avoid risk of low production. Mr El-Kholy has also expressed his willingness to cooperate with EDSC on the Land Reform Project.

Yemen

Mr El-Mehia, Southern Regional of Agricultural Development Project, Taiz, presented an overall report on the agricultural sector in Yemen, cropping patterns, problems of water storage, collection and distribution, small land holdings, types of sharecropping systems and social problems related to irrigation shifts. In some areas, the minority of people hold large land areas, renting it to the tenants in absence of laws or regulations. Such people are politically powerful and farmers have no access to the land. He said a national knowledge network on tenurial relations would be most valuable given this dynamics.

Morocco

Mr Naitbach, Cooperative development Office, Rabat, mentioned main problems facing land reform in uneducated farmers, weakness of cooperatives roles and performance, unstability of farmers income due to unstability of desert weather conditions and unstability of landownership due to varied regulations and laws. Main action of land reform in morocco was the redistribution of land taken after the end of France colonialism to small farmers. Land reform organization assisted new land owners establishing 737 cooperatives with a total of 25 thousand members covering an area of 620 thousand ha. Part of land took over after end of France colonialism was given to some national companies authorizing them to redistribute it to private national or foreign investors. Cooperatives outside this frame are more flexible and free. A new Land reform law was issued exempting all national farmers from land taxes until the year 2010 and giving priorities to cooperatives to own industries related to agricultural sector. Land reform cooperatives (n= 100) pay their role to promote the reversibly immigration of youth from the city to rural areas. As a result of these activities, significant efforts are made by some youth in forestry sector. Land contracts are timely limited and not to be inherit (like in Egypt till 1996). Any improve of cooperatives could lead to improve land reform situations in Morocco.

Discussion on Grass-roots Questionnaire and Knowledge Network

The questionnaire was translated in Arabic and distributed to the national grass-roots representatives for discussion. It was agreed that the questionnaire can be modified whenever it is needed in each of the member country. It was also agreed that the questionnaire will be distributed on both the national organizations and grass-roots levels. It should be sent to Cooperatives, Syndicate of agric. workers, Agricultural Development Organizations, Research Institutes and Socio-political and economical Studies Centers, Village Council for Tenants- Landowners Issue, Village Development Committees, Agrarian Reform Organizations and directly to some individuals such as small farmers, women and workers.

The following targets were set for the number of questionnaires to be conducted in each country:

It was clear that the time span of only 6 weeks oblige following deadlines:

Item	Deadline
Last date to make and inform the regional coordinator for any modifications in the questionnaire	20.11.97
Delivery of conducted questionnaires to the regional coordinator enclosing a small report or comment	15.12.97
Submission of a summary of general findings of successful cases to UNRISD/ IFAD	10.01.98
Preparation of regional overview paper based on questionnairs results to be presented with some visual tools (videos, photos, etc..) in	February,98

The regional coordinator will be in contact with the national coordinators of each country members to:

• collect conducted questionnaires,

• help answering questions related to project progress,

• entry questionnaires data in PC, analyzing it, and interpret results,

• write an overview paper on selected cases, and Knowledge Network

• draft a regional overview paper (30-40 pages) and a progress report on networking in the region (4-5 pages)

Three country action plans for activities and projects will be prepared by each of the country members. These have to be developed following February 98. Each national coordinator will consolidate a network of NGOs working in the area of land reform in his country. This has to be connected with the two other countries.

Recommendations

One of the advantages of the Middle East Node is that this a region where means of communications are relatively adequate, due to the fact that all selected countries speak the same language, Arabic. It was recommended that:

The network can be extended in the future to involve more Arabic countries, but this depends upon the financial situations in the next phase.

More adequate resources should be available to both the regional and national country coordinators in order to strengthen the network knowledge exchange between them on one side and the NGO's of their countries on the other. Regarding to this, following sources should be immediately by IFAD available for:

a) US$ 2,000 for each national coordinators for financing all related efforts to modify, distribute, and mailing of questionnaires to NGO's and to pay for their staff members.

b) Us$ 5,000 for both the regional and national coordinators for buying a powerful PC and connecting it with the INTERNET to facilitate contacting each other quickly.

The expected output of the project in land reform issues should be extended to continue financing selected projects by IFAD or other Donors like FAO more deeply to enhance solving specific problems identified in land reform.

List of Participants

Dr M. Rihan, EDSC Director and Head of Agricultural Economics Department, Ain Shams University.
Dr M. Nasr, EDSC, Regional Coordinator of the Project, Prof. of Agricultural Economics at Ain Shams University.
Dr K. Ghimire, UNRISD, Project Director, Geneva, Switzerland.
Mr Naitbach Driss, National Coordinator, Morocco, Cooperative Development Office, Rabat.
Mr Y. El-Mehia, National Coordinator, Yemen, Southern Regional Agricultural Development Project, Taiz.
Mr M. Qamoura, National Coordinator, Egypt, Chairman, General Syndicate of Agricultural Workers.
Mr M. Ismail, Grass-root representative, Chairman, General Authority for Agrarian Reform, Egypt.
Mr M. Sedira, Grass-root representative, Chairman, General Authority for Rehabilitation and Agricultural Development Projects, Egypt.
Mr A. Abdel-Meguid, Grass-root representative, Deputy Chairman, General Authority for Rehabilitation and Agricultural Development Projects, Egypt.
Mr A. El-Kholy, Grass-root representative, Secretary, Central Cooperative Union, Egypt.
Dr Shehata, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr Abdel-Wahab, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr Qandeel, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr El-Sentrisy, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr El-Saadany, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr Ragab, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Dr Ashry, EDSC, Prof. of Agric. Economics, Ain Shams University.
Mr I. El-Poshi, Journalist, Cooperative Newspaper, Egypt
Mr I. Qamoura, Journalist, Cooperative Newspaper, Egypt
Mr J. El-Sawi, Journalist, Cooperative Newspaper, Egypt
Ms M. Soliman, Journalist, Laborers Newspaper, Egypt
Mr N. Abdel-Aziz, Journalist, Cooperative Newspaper, Egypt
Mr S. Bakri, Translator
Ms A. Iglal, EDSC secretary
Ms A. Sanaa, EDSC secretary
Ms F. Naghat, EDSC secretary
Mr A. Smeh, EDSC, General Relation
Ms M. Samar, EDSC, computer operator
Ms A. Saly, EDSC, scientific assistant
Ms E. Farida, EDSC, scientific assistant