Aware of these difficulties, a group of World Bank staff last year decided to submit a project to the Development Marketplace to support women's access to IDs and BCs, in partnership with a local Egyptian civil society organization.

"If women can't receive pensions or vote, which require IDs in Egypt, then it is as if they don't exist," says Laila Al-Hamad, a Bank consultant who is the project manager on the Bank side. "Targeting efforts toward these women is a way to [help the country's entire development process]."

The project, which was awarded US$109,000 through the competition, in the summer of 2000. By June 2001, a major campaign targeting the general public, the media, NGOs and government officials was fully underway, led by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR), the local implementing NGO. To date, more than 200 development NGOs have undergone training on the nature and scale of the problem, and the need to simplify procedures for obtaining IDs and BCs.

So far, results have been promising. According to the ECWR, those women who have already been issued IDs and BCs have been able to receive inheritance, obtain passports, access micro-credit, receive their deceased husband's pensions, register for literacy classes and find employment in the formal sector.

The campaign has also highlighted the different steps needed to obtain these documents, a process which had hitherto been unclear but necessary to engage relevant registry officials—unaware of many of these problems—in a targeted policy dialogue.

Moreover, the campaign's awareness raising efforts have encouraged groups like the National Council for Women, a quasi-governmental organization, to allocate funds to cover the cost of BCs and IDs in some areas, a decision that has already benefited approximately 45,000 women.

The project is currently being piloted in Cairo and five surrounding governorates. Next steps will include training NGOs in other parts of the country to help women obtain IDs. The issue recently received a major push, when Egypt's First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak, rallied behind it in a speech to the country.  

"It has now been raised by the NCW as one of four major areas of concern for women in Egypt," says Al-Hamad, who noted. "That is remarkable. It wasn't even on the [national] radar a year and a half ago."