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Egypt’s Social Capital and Arab Economic IntegrationThis is one sign of the presence of socialcapital among these groups, and thereciprocal help provided to each other byvillagers and the urban poor is yet anothersign of action towards the common good.Formally, the activities of effective tradeunions, syndicates, associations and politicalparties are also evidence of the presence ofsocial capital.At present, it is difficult to assess thevolume of social capital based on traditionalties in Egypt. However, the mixed nature ofseveral groupings, combining modernorganization and primordial loyalty, atteststo the surviving power of tradition inMuslim and Christian associations and inthe societies of people from the samequarter, town, city or governorate. Some ofthese informal associations in poor urbansettings, particularly among women, havebeen described in the literature, but therehas been no attempt to quantify theirnumber, many of which appear to belong tothe predominant Jam’eyyah type. Anothersign of robust social capital, althoughdifficult to measure, is the apparently largesum of money donated to charitable work inEgypt, especially that related to the paymentof alms (including Zakat), particularlyduring religious festivals.One additional example stands midwaybetween formal and informal manifestationsof social capital, namely the self-help effortsundertaken by citizens, very often incooperation with the government, in orderto finance the provision of certain services.Accurate estimates of the value of theseefforts do not exist, but previous officialfigures suggested hundreds of millions ofEgyptian pounds.Table (7.1) exhibits the variety of formalcontemporary associations in Egypt and thenumber of organizations belonging to eachcategory. The table clearly indicates thatEgyptian citizens come together through avariety of formal bodies catering to theirinterests in almost all areas of socialinteraction: political parties, business groups,professional associations or trade unions,and formal Jam’eyyat. This type of collectiveactivity through formal association is notnew to Egypt, and the oldest such societiesgo back to the early nineteenth century.The numbers of organizations in eachcategory (Table 7.1) are not always a trueindication of the actual condition ofassociation. The number of functioning politicalparties, for example, may not exceed five,and the number of active civic societies iscertainly less than the figure of nearly15,000 Jam’eyyah registered with theMinistry of Social Affairs. Moreover thegeographic distribution of these associationsis quite biased with a large proportiontending to be located in Cairo and othermajor cities.A second measure of social capital ismembership of organizations. It is difficultto obtain the membership figures for mostof them, as few publish any figures.Moreover, figures that may have beencredible a few years ago are no longer so,either because citizens have lost theirenthusiasm for some organizations, orbecause membership records have not beenupdated. Even when figures are available,the number of members does not reflect thelevel of their involvement in the activities ofthe organization. This is particularly theThe activities ofeffective trade unions,syndicates,associations andpolitical parties arealso evidence of thepresence of socialcapital.Table (7-1)Formal Infrastructure of Social Capital in EgyptType of OrganizationPolitical PartiesBusines groupsCooperativesTrade UnionsProfessional AssociationsCitizens’ Societies “Jam” eyyatNumber of Organizations151800026232214600Number of3.03.012.73.35.03.0Egypt Human Development Report 2000/2001 - 105