Contrary to external appearances and official propaganda, the Egyptian Armed Forces are not a unified and cohesive actor, and Abdelfattah al-Sisi is far from being an undisputed leader.

When women in the Middle East make the headlines, it is usually as victims. Disturbing stories of the so called 'Islamic State' (ISIS) kidnapping and raping tens of thousands of women are sadly often the ones which stick in the Western memory. But there is more to women's political lives in the region than their victimisation and oppression. We decided to look to the future, present and past in this issue, in order to present an alternative narrative which challenges these representations of women.

In Paris in December 2015 the parties to the UN Climate Convention agreed to keep global warming „well below“ 2 degrees Celsius, ideally at only 1,5 degrees by 2100.

When ISIS announced the establishment of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ it fuelled discussions as to whether this would herald the ‘end of Sykes-Picot’ – borders artificially drawn by the colonial powers at the beginning of the twentieth century. But borders are more than ‘lines in the sand’: they divide. While the privileged few may cross legitimately by simply presenting their passport, for most, these borders present difficult if not insurmountable hurdles. People fleeing from war, climate change or economic hardship, attempt to cross the Mediterranean but many drown trying.

On October 3rd 2016, Oliver Krischer vice-president of the green parliamentary group in the German Bundestag gave this presentation on the development of environmental policies as policy area in Germany.

The Middle Eastern and Northern African (MENA) region, faced with tumultuous changes in the last five years, shows a picture of shrinking spaces for civil society activism. In contrast, ecological activism is growing and connecting the fight for climate justice to other demands for community and indigenous rights, gender equality, democracy and transparency.

Dear Visitors and partners, Our office will be closed from July 4 to July 8, 2016 for Eid Holidays and Annual Closure. We will reopen to normal schedule again on Monday, July 11. Enjoy your Holidays!  

The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) in partnership with Heinrich Böll Stiftung (North Africa Office) launches “80 Gigawatts of Change, Egypt’s Future Electricity Pathways”, the first report of its kind to be modeled and analyzed by civil society. ‘80 GWs’ models how Egypt’s electricity sector could look in 20 years’ time if technical, social and environmental constraints and community impacts are taken into account.

The Coal Atlas is available in a printed version, in PDF, epub, mobi format and as an online dossier. All graphics and texts are under the open Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA: You can share and adapt the work in compliance with these conditions. All graphics can be found in different formats and can be downloaded here.

This dossier is a collection of articles on the meta-energy issues in Egypt. It captures the social, environmental, economic, and fiscal aspects of the Energy sector. It is part of the Alternative Energy Scenario project under Heinrich Boll Stiftung and the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights which aims to create an equitable energy scenario for Egypt 2035. It is a non-governmental, civil society driven initiative to not only create a vision for Egypt’s energy future, but also anchor it to today’s reality.