Good Governance and Covid-19: the Case of Egypt

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the interventions adopted by the Egyptian state regarding the handling of the global outbreak of the novel corona virus (COVID-19) in early 2020.Despite of the repeated criticisms pointed to the slow, rigid, and reactive public governance mode adopted by the Egyptian state towards most of the old fashioned or the newly arising problems, there has been a clear fundamental change in how the state is dealt with the recent COVID-19 challenge.A new Egyptian state's approach to public management in general and crisis management in specific emerged in the efforts to contain COVID-19, in which the state showed a preemptive, coordinated, robust, and effective public governance that resulted in both local and international praise.The scope of this paper lies in reviewing the Egyptian government and other Egyptian state institutions' interventions in the COVID-19 crisis and the extent of compliance of these interventions with the identified governance standards.The authors do not try to claim that state interventions regarding COVID-19 containment in Egypt were the sole reason for the comparatively better national results, but rather conclude that these interventions were of paramount positive significance in containing COVID-19 outbreak in Egypt.By analyzing data derived from the World Health Organization and qualitative research methods, this paper answers the question of whether there is a relation between the compliance of the the Egyptian government and other state institutions with the governance standards identified and the pattern of the spread of the COVID-19 virus.The qualitative part of the research method was conducted through a review of secondary sources and the analysis of official documents, reports and publications issued by the Egyptian government and different state institutions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.