In September 2015 members of the Egyptian Regulatory Reform and Development Activity (ERRADA) and the SIGMA programme – the latter is a joint EU-OECD initiative principally financed by the European Commission – started a joint project with the overall goal to contribute to the development of a system of good and simplified administrative procedures in the Egyptian public administration. The “Guide to Good Administrative Procedures for Egypt” (hereinafter: “Guide”), presented in this paper, is one of the deliverables of the project and at the same time it is its final result.
For its overall project methodology, the ERRADA/SIGMA team chose an empiric-analytical bottom-up approach, carried out in the following three project phases:
Phase I aimed at analysing (mapping) in detail the practical steps and the regulatory framework of a selected administrative decision-making process of an Egyptian administrative authority and assessing this procedure in the light of international standards with a focus on the concept of Good Administration as it has evolved within the European Union and its Member States.
In phase II – carried out as a pilot – recommendations were elaborated for the conduct of a concrete administrative procedure relevant for the business sector. These recommendations, jointly developed in cooperation with practitioners of the concerned administrative authority, were directed not only at simplifying the procedure but also at ensuring good quality and legality of the administrative services to be delivered as the outcome of the procedure.
On the basis of the findings of both the analytical and the pilot phase, phase III led to the Guide, now addressed to the Egyptian public administration in general and applicable for the administrative practice across the country.
The Guide is targeted mainly at administrative practitioners who are involved in the conduct of individual administrative procedures. This target-group will find in Part III of this paper detailed descriptions of standardised elements and steps of a good and simplified administrative procedure. These very practical steps were derived from principles and rules that are commonly acknowledged in the European Union as the very basic elements of a regulatory framework required in order to meet the standards of good administrative practice. Principles and rules are listed and explained in the preceding Part II of this paper.
The Guide is also directed towards the managerial level of administrative authorities. For this target group Part III also provides recommendations for the process of enabling the concerned administrative authority to (stepwise) implement the principles and rules of good administration by applying the elements and practical steps proposed for the conduct of the procedure.
Business as well as private sector beneficiaries of administrative services form the third target group of the Guide. They would find information on international standards of good administration and to what extent a concrete administrative authority has been striving to reach those standards.
The Guide has been developed as the result of the intensive co-operation between ERRADA and the SIGMA programme. The project was led by Mr. Péter Vági, Senior Adviser and Egypt Country Co- ordinator of SIGMA and Mr. Mohamed Eissa as the ERRADA Co-ordinator of the co-operation. The present Guide was developed by Mr. Wolfgang Rusch and Mr. Lothar Hahn as the lead SIGMA experts of the project with the involvement of the SIGMA and the ERRADA team members and experts.