In this Issue: ERRADA Consults Business on Vet Quarantine and Slaughter Houses 1 Learning about Regulatory Reform 8 Enhancing Government Policy-making Capacities Seminar 2 Cons. Waleed Hamza Appointed Political Director of Agriculture GMU 9 RIA Workshop 4 New Staff Joins the GRU 9 e-Registry Unit Established 6 Mr. Mohamed Negm Resigns 9 Formation of Working Group to Review Agricultural Land Allocation 7 Minister of Investment Honors Mr. Ibrahim Mostafa 10 Red Sea Completes Inventory 7 Mr. Mohamed Fouad Receives Master Degree in Economics 10 Review Status 8 Ms. Heba El-Shourbagy Receives Master Degree in International Business Law 10 ERRADA Launches English Version of Website 8 Consultation session ERRADA Newsletter Volume 2, No. 7, July 2010 ERRADA Consults Business on Slaughter Houses and Vet Quarantine The Business Advisory Council (BAC) in collaboration with ERRADA consulted the business community on the topics of slaughter houses and vet quarantine on 26 July 2010 in their continuous effort to engage business community in the review of regulations. The consultation session aimed to identify challenges facing businesses in their operations in these two areas. The session was attended by business community concerned with slaughter houses and vet quarantine, as well as senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Agriculture GMU and GRU and Egyptian National Competitiveness Council (ENCC) staff. BAC is a mechanism that operates under the umbrella of ENCC and provides a framework for eliciting and representing the interests of the business sector in Egypt towards an efficient implementation of ERRADA.
Transcript
In this Issue:
ERRADA Consults Business on Vet Quarantine and
Slaughter Houses 1 Learning about Regulatory Reform 8
Enhancing Government Policy-making
Capacities Seminar 2
Cons. Waleed Hamza Appointed Political
Director of Agriculture GMU 9
RIA Workshop 4 New Staff Joins the GRU 9
e-Registry Unit Established 6 Mr. Mohamed Negm Resigns 9
Formation of Working Group to Review Agricultural
Land Allocation 7
Minister of Investment Honors
Mr. Ibrahim Mostafa 10
Red Sea Completes Inventory 7 Mr. Mohamed Fouad Receives Master
Degree in Economics 10
Review Status 8 Ms. Heba El-Shourbagy Receives Master
Degree in International Business Law 10
ERRADA Launches English Version of Website 8
Consultation session
ERRADA Newsletter
Volume 2, No. 7, July 2010
ERRADA Consults Business on Slaughter
Houses and Vet Quarantine
The Business Advisory Council (BAC) in
collaboration with ERRADA consulted the
business community on the topics of slaughter
houses and vet quarantine on 26 July 2010 in
their continuous effort to engage business
community in the review of regulations. The
consultation session aimed to identify
challenges facing businesses in their
operations in these two areas.
The session was attended by business
community concerned with slaughter houses
and vet quarantine, as well as senior officials
from the Ministry of Agriculture, Agriculture
GMU and GRU and Egyptian National
Competitiveness Council (ENCC) staff.
BAC is a mechanism that operates under the
umbrella of ENCC and provides a framework
for eliciting and representing the interests of
the business sector in Egypt towards an
efficient implementation of ERRADA.
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 2
Participants in consultation
The discussions in the consultation revealed
the following challenges:
• poor and costly logistics in Egypt;
• sudden rise in fees of some vet services;
• limited number of refrigerators at the
airport, most of which are used for
chocolate;
• limited number of refrigeration vehicles
and high customs on import of these
vehicles;
• technical committees of unqualified staff
that are sent to inspect slaughter houses
in exporting countries;
• short expiry period of imported chilled
meat;
• poor health and safety conditions of some
slaughter houses;
• commercial fraud of some chicken
slaughter houses, where producers melt
imported frozen chicken and repackage
and sell them;
• destruction of the poultry industry in the
aftermath of the bird flu and killing of a
large number of poultry.
The main recommendations that came out of
the consultation were as follows:
• Allow import of live calves from epidemic
free countries to be bred in Egypt.
• Provide incentives to refrigeration vehicles
manufacturing in Egypt.
• Reduce customs on refrigeration vehicles.
• Consider accepting certificates instead of
sending committees to exporting country
for inspection, and impose ban on
importer for one year in case of violation.
• Form permanent technical committees in
exporting countries.
• Issue a new regulation regarding stamping
meat to consider imported calves that are
bred in Egypt as local products.
• Reconsider age of imported meat.
• Reconsider the validity period of imported
meat.
• Reconsider conditions on slaughter
houses whilst offering transitional grace
period for incompliant slaughter houses to
adjust their conditions.
• Support local chicken industry either
through protectionist measures or by
offering subsidies to local producers.
• Ban handle of live poultry.
At the end of the event, the participants
requested to hold another session to further
discuss these topics.
Enhancing Government Policy-making
Capacities Seminar
ERRADA organized, in collaboration with
Information Decision Support Center (IDSC)
and SIGMA, a seminar entitled "Enhancing
Egyptian Government Policy Capacities in the
Light of EU Experiences” on 5 July 2010.
Participants included researchers, academics,
professionals and government officials.
Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din, Chair – ERRADA BOT,
in his opening speech referred to the role of
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 3
From left: Mr. Gamal Bayomi, Mr. Edward Donelan,
Dr. Magued Osman and Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din
Participants in seminar
ERRADA in the review of regulations in order
to create legal certainty and justice. He
pointed out that those targeted with
regulations should be aware of it. The way to
achieve this is to engage them in the
formulation of regulations
Dr. Magued Osman, Chair – IDSC, highlighted
the Center's role in monitoring and evaluating
government policies and programs to report to
policy makers the achievements made without
exaggeration and point out weaknesses in
performance with the aim of improvement.
This in turn should lead to further
development.
Ambassador Gamal Bayoumi – Head of
Support Association Agreement Program
(SAAP), highlighted the importance of the
cooperation between Egypt and the European
Union (EU) and the technical support provided
by the EU to Egypt through various activities,
such as this seminar.
Mr. Edward Donlen, Senior Advisor – SIGMA,
focused on the policy making process. He
explained that policies represent various
options made by governments and that the
success of these options depends on the
process through which they are reached
through examination and analysis of
alternatives.
Ms. Neveen Ahmed, who represented the EU
Delegation, expressed her pleasure with the
seminar that signified the cooperation
between OECD and SIGMA on one side and
Egypt on the other side, in the field of
institutional capacity building of the
government.
In his presentation, Mr. Lorenzo Allio
discussed impact assessment for policies and
strategies in the EU which includes monitoring
and evaluation (M&E) of policies through
identification of different alternatives and
measuring their benefits and costs.
Mr. Ian Davies highlighted the difference
between monitoring and evaluation of policies.
Whereas monitoring is conducted periodically,
evaluation is undertaken at the end of a
certain stage. For example, the government
could conduct a mid-term evaluation of a
program or project and make adjustments
based on the findings and conduct another
final evaluation upon completion of the
project. Mr. Davies noted that monitoring is
the responsibility of management in order to
ensure that desired objectives will be
achieved. He also emphasized that M&E do
not bring about change; it is management that
effects change based on M&E results.
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 4
From left: Dr.Karen Hill, Mr. Edward
Donelan and Mr. Thomas Ferris
He pointed out the growing interest in M&E at
the international level because of the Paris
Declaration, which was signed by many
countries and international organizations in
2005. The Declaration aims to harmonize
international aid in order to achieve better
results and maximize return from aid through
steps and indicators that could be monitored.
Accordingly, aid recipient countries started
establishing M&E systems. Finally, Mr. Davies
emphasized that the most important thing in
evaluation is the process itself, which allows
stakeholders to think about their work, and not
the methodology used in the evaluation.
At the end of the day, Mr. Donelan
summarized the conclusions of the day and
emphasized that the UK is one of the best
countries in the field of impact assessment in
terms of transparency and consultation with
stakeholders because of its concern with
continuous development of systems and
impact assessment practices.
RIA Workshop
ERRADA organized, in collaboration with
SIGMA, a workshop on regulatory impact
assessment on 6 July 2010. Participants
included members of the GRU and GMUs.
The workshop aimed at providing a detailed
explanation of impact assessment, the
challenges of introducing it and some good
examples in Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries. It also included practical exercises
to raise the capacity of ERRADA staff in the
field of impact assessment.
Mr. Edward Donelan pointed out that
regulations have a cost and in order to issue
them the benefit should be higher than the
cost. This is the role of impact assessment,
which is a tool used by many OECD countries
to assess the economic and social impact of
any policy option before issuing a proposed
regulation because of policy makers’ desire to
improve the quality of policy-making.
Mr. Lorenzo Allio explained that impact
assessment is not just a report to be prepared
but is an integrated process. It is not
conducted to justify a decision already taken,
and does not exempt the decision maker from
responsibility. It contributes to reducing
regulatory failure.
Mr. Allio highlighted some of the challenges
related to the use of impact assessment,
namely: identification of the problem,
availability of data, proportionality of the
analysis to the size of the problem, and
quantification of the benefits, risk assessment
and complex costs. He stressed the
importance of: identifying the purpose of using
this tool and institutional capacity to undertake
this exercise and not only human capacity.
Although the process of impact assessment
does not vary according to the subject under
study (i.e. identification of the problem,
identification of alternatives, measurement of
benefits and costs, and assessment of
options), methods of calculation of benefits
and costs may differ from topic to topic.
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 5
Working group
Participants in workshop
Mr. Thomas Ferris emphasized that the lack
of data does not preclude an assessment of
impact and can be overcome through
innovation in finding data such as using data
from other countries. Mr. Ferris noted that
there is no single model for impact
assessment, but there are six key elements:
clear identification of objectives; examination
of impacts; consideration of alternatives to
regulation; consultation with relevant
stakeholders; estimation of implementation;
and measurement of compliance costs. Finally
he stressed the importance of dissemination
of results of impact assessment studies
through seminars and workshops.
Ms. Karen Hill focused on the experience of
the UK in regulatory reform. She pointed out
that the Better Regulation unit concerned with
regulatory reform has been moved around in
the government several times according to the
priorities of the government and message
intended to be conveyed to stakeholders
outside the government. She explained that
impact assessment constitutes a burden on
relevant authorities; this is why political
support is very important for the success of
this effort. The UK measured administrative
burden, relatively late compared to other
countries, and managed to reduce it by 25%
this year. Ms. Hill pointed out to the change of
name from “regulatory impact assessment” to
“impact assessment” as all mechanisms
available to public administration to address a
certain problem are assessed.
With time, the government became more
interested in consultation with relevant
stakeholders. Ms. Hill emphasized the
importance sending feedback to the business
community and consulted entities and
publishing this in impact assessment results to
create trust between them and the
government. She also referred to the
importance of use of checklists in impact
assessment because it is a logical tool that
helps in examining the impact in order to
reach a recommendation. She also noted that
the final recommendation could include
elements from several examined alternatives.
Participants undertook a practical exercise
about the use of plastic bags in society. They
were divided into five working groups, where
they identified the problem and different
alternatives and assessed the benefits and
costs of implementing each alternative. At the
end of the exercise, the groups reported the
group findings and the experts commented on
these findings. The main lessons learnt were:
1. The importance of transition period in
implementing alternatives.
2. Use of data wherever possible.
3. Considering research and development in
alternatives.
4. Examining existing practices.
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 6
e-Registry working group
5. Analyzing reasons for failure of current
mechanisms.
6. Possibility of proposing a package of
alternatives.
e-Registry Unit Established
The GRU established an e-Registry Unit
(ERU) by Executive Decision No. 3/1010 with
the aim of providing access to business
related regulations to all those affected by
them free of charge.
The Unit reports to the Executive Director of
the Initiative and is formed of Mr. Hassan El-
Lamie, Supervisor, and Mr. Hesham Abdel
Tawab, Assistant.
The e-Registry Unit has the following
functions:
1. Monitor, examine and classify regulations
issued thereafter.
2. Enter all regulations higher than
ministerial decree – that are issued after
the establishment of the Unit – on
ERRADA database.
3. Transfer all dosiers for the
abovementioned regulations to the Unit,
while GMUs and Governorate Units
continue to be responsible for the existing
ministerial and governors' decrees
respectively and those below them. They
will also continuue to enter these
regulations according to the authority of
GMU or Governorate Unit.
4. Ensure the quality of the database through
monitoring what has been entered by units
thereafter.
5. Coordinate among GMUs participating in
the database.
6. Present a weekly progress report to the
Executive Director.
A working group was also formed by the same
Decision including the following members in
addition to the Unit staff:
Mr. Ahmed Hassan Representing IT
Department
Ms. Emmy Mahdy Representing
Legal Department
Mr. Amr Youssef Representing
Operations
Department
Mr. Omar Tork Representing
GMUs
The working group has the following functions:
1. Formulate proposals to develop ERRADA
database continuously.
2. Examine international and local
experiences in the area of registry of
regulations with the aim of promoting the
role of the e-Registry Unit as a national
database and information system.
3. Work on making the database accessible
to several entities such as ministries,
monitoring bodies, legislative entities,
academic or research institutions,
government authorities, business
associations and citizens.
ERRADA Newsletter – July 2010 7
Mr. Sobhi Mohamed,
Red Sea Unit Manager
Agricultural land allocation working
group
The working group conducted its first meeting
on 14 July 2010 to discuss the next steps
especially laying down proposal for work flow
of the Unit.
Formation of Working Group to Review
Agricultural Land Allocation
ERRADA always seeks to play an active and
constructive role in contributing towards
enhancing the business environment in Egypt
through better and accessible regulations.
Therefore, it assigned the review of the topic
of land allocation high priority, upon the
recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture
and the BOT. This topic is significant for the
business community and citizens in general.
The reorganization of this issue, from a
regulatory and practical perspective, would
lead to the stability and legitimization of
acquired property through review and
streamline of the regulations governing the
topic.
In this context, ERRADA Executive Decision
No. 2/2010 was issued to form a working
group to review the topic of land allocation
from all aspects. The group comprises
members with diversified expertise from
different disciplines under the supervision of
Cons. Mohsen Mansour, Vice-Chairman of the
Council of State and Legal Counselor to
Agriculture GMU. It also includes
representatives from the Unit with expertise in
this area, as well as representatives from the
GRU.
The working group developed, in their first
meeting, an action plan that focused on
identifying relevant authorities. Then the group
will determine the laws that govern the work of
each authority, its mechanism and procedures
followed in land allocation. They will provide a
list of related decrees. Finally, they will identify
