Charities struggle during Egypt's economic crisis

If you have been following Egyptian TV channels during the month of Ramadan you must have noticed the many advertisements that call on people to donate for a wide range of charity projects. Calls to donate for building hospitals, providing impoverished people with food and water, and getting indebted mothers out of jail are all presented in sometimes dramatic ways to encourage people to give.
Egyptian charities, it seems, have not escaped the ramifications of the economic crisis triggered by the January 25 Revolution in 2011. Donations and volunteering have decreased considerably, affecting the operational running of many charities. Meanwhile, a number of local and international NGOs were closed amid accusations of bias or political motivations.

“Charitable donations from abroad have witnessed the greatest decline. Domestic funding, though affected, has remained more consistent,” explains Khalid Sultan of the funding unit of the Ministry of Social Affairs, acknowledging the recent increase in domestic funding during the holy month of Ramadan.

Prior to the 2011 revolution, NGOs played a significant role in the country’s socio-economic development, assert experts, alleviating some of the pressures neglected by the malfunctioning state. Following the January uprising, controversy over foreign funding of Egyptian and international NGOs expressed by local media and the public notably increased, leading to closures. Controversy was amplified after February 2012, when authorities accused 43 Egyptian and foreign human rights activists of founding NGOs and receiving foreign funding without the necessary permits.