Sub-Councils

This year the ENCC established three sub-councils: the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Council, the Human Resources Council and the Agriculture Competitiveness Council.

I. The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Council (T&TCC):

The ENCC launched its T&TCC council during the “World Economic Forum (WEF), on the Middle East and North Africa at a special session on tourism on May 18th 2009 at the Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Egyptian travel and tourism sector contributes an estimated 11.3 % of Gross Domestic Product and 12.6 % of national employment. Its importance to the Egyptian economy and large growth potential led the ENCC to dedicate a chapter to it in the Fifth Egyptian Competitiveness Report. The T&TCC was subsequently created to disseminate and build upon the findings of the report and advance the policy recommendations it put forth. In addition, the sub-council’s creation was in response to Egypt’s low ranking in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index. Egypt placed 66th out of 130 countries in 2008, down from 58 out of 124 countries in 2007.

The sub-council brings together stakeholders from the travel and tourism sector, including high-profile leaders from the government, academia and private sector, to review recent developments, discuss challenges and propose strategies to enhance its international competitiveness. The mission of the T&TCC is “to assess the factors impeding the enhanced competitiveness of the sector, and suggest solutions for dealing with these impediments. This is done through spreading awareness (inside and outside the sector), advocacy and mobilizing efforts, in cooperation with other stakeholders.”

The T&TCC’s most recent action plan is outlined in a special chapter in the WEF’s 2009 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report where Egypt ranked 64 out of 133 countries. The proposed strategy addresses the industry’s most salient needs based on the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index. The index, a foundation for the sub-council’s action plan, provides a closer look at specific deficiencies and obstacles that must be overcome. Based on its findings and the input of industry experts and council members, three main priority areas were identified.

1. Human Resource Development
2. Institution and Capacity Building for Industry Advocacy
3. Environmental Sustainability

Under each of these headings a number of initiatives and activities have been selected for the upcoming year. Short-term tasks related to human resource development will include increasing institutional coordination and assessing the sector’s human resource needs. Long-term initiatives will focus on the industry enablers, sector research and monitoring, curriculum design and training provision. Industry advocacy will be tackled through awareness workshops and institutional support to the Supreme Council of Tourism Travel and the proposed Tourism Modernization Center. Finally, a special fund will be created to help promote environmental sustainability in the travel and tourism sector alongside awareness raising seminars and workshops. The chapter noted that the Egyptian experience is not unique and that similar efforts could be replicated in other countries to improve the performance of travel and tourism sectors.

Most recently the T&TCC prepared an update report on the performance of the travel and tourism sector throughout the past year. Authored by Professor Adla Ragab, member of the T&TCC and Economic Advisor to the Minister of Tourism, the report credited the slight improvement in Egypt’s ranking in the 2009 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report (from 66 out of 130 countries in 2008 to 64 out of 133 countries in 2009) to price competitiveness, government prioritization, affinity to travel and tourism, number of operating airlines, visa requirements and time required to start a business. Areas of decline included enforcement of environmental regulations, poor infrastructure (reflected in road and airport density) and poor-quality human resources. Modifications to this year’s ranking methodology were made in order to greater reflect regional contexts — in line with requests made by Egypt among other countries at the 2008 World Economic Forum on the Middle East. However, there is still a need for revised hard data collection techniques than can better reflect the provision of services in Egypt. Finally, the report suggested that reform should continue to focus on the key areas of weakness such as human resource and infrastructure development, as well as increased ministerial coordination to foster more sustainable tourism development.

• T&TCC Members:

II. The Human Resources Competitiveness Council (HRCC)

The mission of the HRCC, which was launched by the ENCC on August 2008 in Cairo, is “to raise awareness, stimulate efforts, and take initiatives to enhance the competitiveness of Egyptian human resources — as a major efficiency enhancing factor in the aggregate competitiveness of Egypt.” In other words it seeks to increase understanding, suggest policies and initiate projects that enhance Egypt’s human resource competitiveness. This role has become especially important after the 2007-2008 Global Competitiveness Report indicated that weak capabilities of human resources were contributing to Egypt’s low competitiveness rank. According to the report, Egypt’s ranking in higher education tumbled by 22 places, from 80th to 102nd place. An “inadequately educated workforce” was cited as one of the biggest problems to doing business.

Education at all levels is essential to human resource development, however, the HRCC chose to focus its 2008-2009 activities on higher education. This is because of the unique role played by higher education in creating a skilled workforce and a knowledge economy. Next year, the council will address vocational education and training. At present, the council is spearheading efforts to create a national ranking system for Egyptian universities based on the competitiveness of the graduates they produce. This is due to the lack of independent information in the marketplace on the quality of specific programs. In the midst of expected increased unemployment, businesses face fierce competition for a scarce supply of graduates with proper skills. Better information on the education market in Egypt will aid employers and motivate universities to be more attuned to their needs. This information would help prospective students and pressure institutions of higher education to compete more rigorously. The rankings will also raise the profile of higher education on the nation’s economic reform agenda. Initially the ranking system will include the departments of computer science and communication engineering to be expanded upon successful completion of the pilot project. A total of 8 indicators have been selected to evaluate these two programs across the nation’s universities related to the quality of academic programs, linkages to industry and the relevance of graduates’ skills to the marketplace.

The ranking will be based on indicators for which data is reliable and available. Recognizing that an independent ranking of universities is only one of many ways to gauge university performance, widely used indicators of quality will likely be the easiest to monitor and provide the greatest degree of reliability. Input from academia, government and business will be sought before proceeding with data collection to aid the design and methodology. The Soundness Committee was formed to provide greater stakeholder involvement in the ranking project. It includes Prof. Ali Eldin Helal, Prof. Hussein Kamel Bahaa Eldin, Prof. Sami Abdel Aziz, Dr. Hisham El Sherif, Dr. Adel Danish, Dr. Adel Goher, Mr. Omar Mohana, Ms. Lola Zaklama. Their first meeting was held to evaluate the indicators and resulted in the addition of several new ideas for the ranking project.

International experience also provides several important lessons to guide the HRCC approach in order to make the ranking exercise beneficial to universities, students, employers and the public at large. The HRCC examined lessons from the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, across countries at various stages of economic development. The following principles guided the HRCC’s development of indicators for the system; the ranking system must: be transparent, use a range of indicators and compare similar programs rather than a university-wide weighted score, align ranking with existing quality improvement initiatives and have simple objective indicators.

• HRCC Members:

III. The Agriculture Competitiveness Council (ACC)

The ENCC launched its third sub-council, the Agricultural Competitiveness Council (ACC), in November 2008. The new council will focus on issues concerning the development and competitiveness of Egypt’s agriculture sector. Sustainable agriculture will be an important area of discussion given the sector’s sensitivity to environmental conditions. The ACC will work on advocating the recommendations announced in this year’s Egyptian Competitiveness Report that has a special chapter on the agriculture sector and setting a more elaborate action plan for the sector.

• ACC Members: