As a result of a recent visit to Libya to attend a UN hosted development conference, OHK’s Ahmed Hassan was retained by the Libyan government to provide tourism and infrastructure investment insights into the work conducted by Michael Porter and Daniel Yergin (of the Monitor Group and Cambridge Energy Research Associates). In early 2006, Porter et al presented a 200-page report to Libyan officials in Tripoli, applying his celebrated Competitive Strategy theory to diversify the Libyan economy away from its heavy dependence on oil. Ahmed’s critique focused on advising Libyan government officials from the Investment Authority and various ministries like Tourism, Public Works and the Environment on ways to implement Porter’s strategy work.
Drafting Heritage Site Management Guidelines for the UNWTO
Key specialists from OHK were retained as reviewers and authors of several UN World Tourism Organization guidelines that included manuals on tourism management at natural and heritage sites. In addition, several publications were Arabized and a series of case studies from World Heritage Sites were authored. OHK Consultants brought to this effort their experience working in numerous such sites in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Lebanon to illustrate what challenges and opportunities for conservation management and visitor experience are most salient for the MENA region.
OHK Presents on Building Gender Equality into Tourism Investments
OHK’s Ahmed Hassan presented to the 2006 Global Summit of Women in Cairo, Egypt, where he discussed shortcomings by hospitality investors and management in driving gender equity, and, in so doing, contributing to the achievement of the Third Millennium Development Goal. The keynote presentation, attended by the First Lady of Egypt and highly promoted by Egypt’s National Council for Women, brought gender issues to the forefront of Egypt’s tourism industry, which contributes nearly 50,000 jobs every year in remote and gender-unequal regions of Egypt. A roadmap was presented to build a practical and implementable strategy for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, encouraging the tourism sector to take on mainstream gender issues in their respective tourism policies.
Mr. Hassan presented findings from a 2005 gender analysis of the living conditions of the Ababda & Bashareya tribeswomen of Southern Egypt, where one of the largest tourism investment schemes in the world is taking place. He argued that the traditional paradigm of small income-generating enterprises, though well-intentioned, will never scale sufficiently to meet national development objectives. As Mr. Hassan observed: “Tourist development has been creeping down Egypt’s so-called ‘Deep South’ for nearly a decade, but targeted legislation that could embed capacity building and employment of local communities into development projects has been absent.” Mr. Hassan continued: "The government must institutionalize local community development and gender equality as part of large investor and land sale contracts, with jobs created for local women being as important a KPI as the number of hotel rooms developed.”
OHK's Co-authors Shoreline Management Guidelines with DHI
As development activities radically alter coastlines across the Middle East and China, there is an urgent need for guidelines acquainting developers and government organizations with sound shoreline management. In collaboration with DHI, a world leader in developing the world’s coastlines, OHK’s Ahmed Hassan has co-authored a state-of-the-art manuscript on Shoreline Management Guidelines, first published in English in 2001 and recently updated in Arabic.
In a year-long collaboration, OHK’s founder Ahmed Hassan and DHI’s Global Chief Engineer Karsten Mangor made the publication timely by addressing the types of projects that are shaping places like Dubai, China, and Egypt’s Red Sea. The guidelines explain in ordinary, comprehensible language the terminology and mechanisms of shoreline management and explore mitigation of impacts of marine and coastal projects. A launch event of the publication was hosted on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, where some 3,000 km of pristine coastline are undergoing massive, man-made change. Consulting engineers, planners, landscape architects, decision makers, NGOs, land owners, and investors took part in the event. Currently, many of the largest coastline developments in the world like the Palm Tree in Dubai are applying the guidelines to address post-construction challenges.
Contact us to obtain information on Shoreline Management Guidelines in English or Arabic.
OHK Drafts the Aswan Declaration for Responsible Tourism
The Aswan Declaration was organized by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and hosted by the Egyptian government in Aswan, Egypt’s ancient city on the Nile, as a prelude to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. More than 100 delegates from 15 countries attended the declaration which grew out of Egypt’s work on responsible tourism guidelines and involved study tours of the Egyptian model of community-based tourism. OHK was instrumental in drafting the declaration and facilitating the declaration event, spending two months in Egypt studying the Ministry of Tourism’s efforts and meeting with decision makers and communities in tourist destinations undergoing planning and growth. The declaration was drafted after field-testing more than 20 responsible tourism projects and consulting with hundreds of community activities and individuals.
The declaration read by Egypt’s Minister of Tourism (shown in the photo above) made the following ministerial-level commitment: “We will take steps to strengthen our national planning and executive efforts to address underprivileged communities and gender inequality and promote sustainable tourism growth as a key eradicator of poverty.” The declaration concluded two days of presentations, during which OHK’s Ahmed Hassan presented poverty reduction strategies implemented in Siwa, the South Red Sea, the Western Desert, and the Sinai that highlighted community-protective national strategies and investor-engagement models. He also ran a workshop that focused on practical tools for tourism practitioners to bridge gaps between tourism policy and hospitality operations.
OHK Executive Produces Anti-poverty Ad Campaign in Egypt
As part of the UK Department for International Development’s (DfID) program to fight poverty in rural Egypt, OHK’s Ahmed Hassan will act as executive producer for an ad campaign and a series of video casts, leading production and subject matter expert teams from Egypt and the UK on a tour of 50 rural regions across six Governorates in Egypt’s Nile Valley. As Mr. Hassan noted: “This is not a job – it's an honor to be able to help get priority attention to the poor communities and deprived areas of Egypt. There is dire need to go beyond the meager public funds available and get the private sector involved.”
The campaign will focus on presenting business-minded approaches to poverty that can make a difference through private investments in micro, small, and medium size enterprises in rural regions. In his role during the tour, Ahmed will devise 100 projects that meet both the expectations of investors and the needs of poor communities. “This advocacy campaign will tell a story about the role that private investment has to play in some of the most impoverished parts of Egypt – a role that links profit margins to the improvement of local livelihoods.”
Update: As of 2004, more than 100 hours of public TV streaming and 5,000 DVDs have been distributed to the Egyptian public.