DPU Working Paper - No. 29

Author: M Ayman A M Daef

Publication Date: September 1986

In 1974, President Sadat of Egypt initiated an Open Door Economic Policy (ODEP). It called for the revitalisation of the private sector, opening the country's doors to the flow of foreign and Arab capital and the partial dismantling of the public sector. The sum of these policies, which are still operative at the present time, constituted a reversal of Egypt's socialist transformation experienced under Nasser (19521970). The open door economic policy tilted progressively towards capitalist "laissezfaire, laissezpasser".

As a corollary, the logic of the open door economic policy has been manifested in urban public service provisions as part of the government domestic policy. The focus of this analysis is to assess the extent to which the provision of such public services, housing and attendant utilities in particular, and the level of investment in such services reflect or sustain something that can justifiably be called "biased shift of emphasis", that is, an allocation of resources that neither serves the goals of equity nor of efficient urban development
performance.

Download this paper