FJP 2011 Program on Human Development

A nation’s progress is measured by its achievements in the field of human development, in building human capacities. Our election program gives particular priority to this issue. We endeavour to safeguard every citizen’s right to live in a suitable environment, the right to education, right to health care, in order to build a generation capable of achieving development for this community.

A. Making the Egyptian citizen

A human being is of great value in himself. Created and honoured by God “We have certainly honoured the children of Adam” (Quranic Chapter 17, Al-Isra; Verse: 70), he is the effective tool for all desired reform and change. His freedom, security and dignity are the ultimate goals of all reform.

It is, therefore, of paramount importance to make the Egyptian citizen, with a good rich personality "spiritually, intellectually, scientifically and physically", in order to create a morally committed and intellectually mature generation, with a true sense of belonging to the homeland, and a healthy appetite for knowledge, and who is healthy both mentally and physically, and is thus able to go through life conscious and alert, and to achieve a leap in the development of the nation and the homeland.

Here is our vision for the role of women in Egypt, and their rights and duties, as well as our vision for the development of youth and children sectors.

 

  1. Women:

 

The basic principle of Islamic law is equality between women and men in rights and duties. Therefore, we stress the importance of social support to women to help them perform their roles in society and to promote active participation in elections and membership of the elected legislative and local councils; we support women’s informed involvement in the development process in all its aspects; we support their demands for fundamental free and dignified life fit for their human and social status; and also support women’s illiteracy eradication initiatives and plans, and adoption of programs packages to help widows and divorced women, to safeguard their social rights, and we support women as heads of households.

The FJP has the greatest respect, appreciation and support for women’s role as wives, mothers and makers of men; and aims to better prepare them for this role. The party aims for society to benefit from women’s capabilities and resources, and realise that their giving is more, not less than men’s giving – especially after their children grow beyond childhood and adolescence. Hence, the FJP holds that their power must be employed for the betterment of Egypt, our homeland.

 

  2. The family as the child’s first incubator:

 

The family is the oldest institution on earth. It’s also the first incubator for breeding and upbringing of humans. To realise the importance of focusing on the construction of the family unit as a means for making and shaping the good Egyptian citizen, let’s look at the outcome of the previous decades of exposure systematic corruption implemented by several parties, especially the National Council for women, the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, and a whole list of civil society organisations that receive foreign funds from suspicious sources.

Those were helped along down that slimy slope with a package of corrupt laws passed not due to public demand, but were the result of international dictates imposed on us by international conventions signed under the previous regime.

Thirty years ago, Egypt joined an international convention for women called the "Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)" although this Convention controls the most private of the marital relationship details.

Do any members of our great public know that Egypt is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which allows a child to choose the family to live with? Do Egyptians realise that they are obliged to accept homosexuals and treat them in the best and kindest way possible, in compliance with those agreements?? Not to mention the legalisation of adoption in ways strictly forbidden in Islamic law?!

Was it not our right as citizens in this country to have referenda on such conventions and agreements that control the finest details of our lives and our family relationships? Since this was not done at the time these conventions were signed, it is our right – as a people proud of their identity and religion – to insist on re-consideration of those agreements. Then they should be re-evaluated in terms of suitability to our culture, traditions and ??established values. We should have the first and last word on accession to those conventions.

After this blessed historical revolution, we must endeavour to implement a number of preventive and therapeutic programs for:

 

The short term:

–       Family guidance programs, to solve family problems that already exist, neglecting which would lead higher rates of divorce.

–       Programs for the training, education and rehabilitation of young people approaching marriage, so each of the new spouses would be aware of his/her duties towards the other, and his/her role in the family.

–       Enacting the laws and regulations that safeguard rights and protect society, such as: requiring the husband to support his family financially, requiring the father to support his children financially when he divorces their mother, simplifying divorce procedures in accordance with the provisions of Islamic law, if all attempts at reconciliation fail, and criminalising illicit relationships, and so on.

–       Abolition of the National Council for Women and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, which acted as the intelligence arm of the international players in Egypt, and replacing them with a national council for the family intent on providing a healthy climate for making good balanced families and takes into account family affairs and security.

 

The medium term:

–       Adoption of a package of initiatives and programs to help divorced women and widows, ensure they get all social security benefits they are entitled to, and support families without a breadwinner.

–       Encouraging productive families and small (home-based) projects with ‘friendly’ loans to help solve the problems of poverty and unemployment.

–       Integration of traditional family values in education curricula.

–       Consolidate the values ??of chastity and modesty in the media, in education curricula, and in street advertisements.

–       Reviewing labour laws, to allow mothers with new-born children to spend more time with their children, so as not to limit their role in raising and upbringing their young, as much as possible.

–       Reviewing personal status laws, ridding them of materials destructive to the family, and endeavouring to make personal status laws comply with Islamic law, while reserving the right of Copts to their own personal status laws.

 

The long term:

–       Developing a road map to achieve complete independence for the Egyptian state, in all matters pertaining to family, women and children, beginning with a review of the CEDAW and CRC international conventions, and ending with a popular decision on those, so that Egyptian policy, in this regard, stems from the inherent pure values of the Egyptian people, not from some international agenda.

 

2. Youths and Sports:

 

We will seek to develop all elements of youth and sports sector activity in Egypt, at both the institutional and technical/skill levels, and starting from the level of youth centres, sports clubs and school sports activity, working up to the level of supporting projects for shaping Olympic champions, and achieving greater administrative and financial reform in this important and vital sector, by utilising the latest methods of strategic planning; expanding the base of participation in sports activities; encouraging the private sector and the community to support human development in this area; and working to include most of the segments of society in appropriate sports activities.

 

  3. Children:

 

The reality of childhood in Egypt requires a strategic vision for revitalisation and advancement, like improving children’s psychological health, providing primary health care, helping the formulation of sound mentality, and preventing harmful effects. This can be achieved by educating young people – in theory and in practice – the principles of Islam and morality, as well as modern science, the love of homeland, which requires an educational environment with proper integration of the various institutions of education and upbringing: family, school, institute, university, mosque, church, media institutions, and civil society institutions.

The new Children’s Act should be thoroughly reviewed, to abolish all items contained therein which collide with the moral value system of the Egyptian society.

 

B: Education and Scientific Research

 

  1. Elementary and Secondary Education:

 

• Paying attention to the dimensions of the learner’s personality in an integrated and balanced manner.
• Doubling education budget gradually, so as to match international rates.
  
  
• Increasing the percentage of kindergarten capacity to 50%.
• Increasing the number of classrooms, by building 40,000 new classrooms, as a first stage, within five years.
• Restoring trust in educational institutions, to reduce the magnitude of the private lessons problem.
• Solving the problem of illiteracy by providing human and material resources, and cooperating with colleges of education and civil society organizations who volunteer help and assistance in this regard.

 

  2. University-Based Higher Education:

 

• Preparing legislation and mechanisms with clear implementation procedures for real and effective independence of Egyptian universities, where university leaders are selected by free, direct elections.
• Encouraging horizontal expansion in public universities and community colleges to achieve a percentage of one university per 2-3 million people, and linking the number of universities and students, their curricula to the needs of the labour market.
• Developing a new financial category for members of staff at universities fit for their social and scientific status.
• Support university infrastructure with scientific laboratories, libraries and student activities.

 

  3. Scientific Research:

 

• Increasing GDP percentages allocated to scientific research gradually to reach 2.5%.
• Developing a national strategy that allows the transfer, nationalisation and development of technologies and supports innovation and invention in solving the problems and issues of the community.
• Developing of higher studies and research systems at universities, as well as research centres for professional training of outstanding researchers, scientifically and morally.
• Linking scientific research institutions with centres of production, services and facilities.

 

  C. Health Care:

 

• Increasing financial allocation to health gradually, so it should in time reach international averages.
• Increasing the incomes of medical staff to ensure efficient medical presence around the clock and a decent life for medical workers, while adopting a full-time work approach for all medical staff…
  
  
  

–       Extending the umbrella of medical insurance to cover all classes of the Egyptian people, where individuals pay what they can and get what they need.

–       Increasing the number of specialised institutions for the treatment of diseases that cause most illness and mortality, especially liver disease, cancer, heart disease and schistosomiasis; and spreading those medical institutions geographically to areas outside the capital, to cover the Delta as well as the North and South of Upper Egypt.

–       Establishing a Supreme Drug Authority to oversee local production of all medical supplies and medicines for chronic diseases.

–       Developing a Food and Drug Safety Authority to tighten controls on the production, sale and use of medicines and foods.

See FJP’s full program for Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections, 2011