Hossam Samir Ibrahim , Safaa A. Ghoneim

1. Regional Development Department, Faculty of Regional & Urban planning, Cairo University, Egypt
2. Environmental Planning Department, Faculty of Regional & Urban planning, Cairo University, Egypt
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 46   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0046
Received: 17 Aug., 2013    Accepted: 16 Sep., 2013    Published: 25 Oct., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Ibrahim and Ghoneim, 2013, Integration as a Significance Factor in Effective Coastal Management: Egypt as a Case Study, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.46 389-401 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0046)

In the last two decades, integration and collaboration have become common themes in coastal management. They are advocated for their holistic approach that considers management outcomes rather than narrow jurisdictions of individual issues. Being more specific; Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is a complex process with various issues to be covered and requiring a network of agencies and policies to be integrated. Furthermore, ICZM as a tool of effective planning and management encompasses different dimensions. Simultaneously, the integration should be territorial (comprising a delimited space), and temporal (long-term oriented), as well as being horizontal (cross-sectoral) and vertical (involving various administrative bodies) Hence, Multi-dimensional integration is essential for ICZM to succeed. However, achieving effective integration in coastal management is always difficult, especially in developing countries. Egypt provides an excellent case study of this experience. Since the mid-1990s several attempts have been made to promote ICZM in Egypt, although none have, as yet, achieved their goal of having an ICZM plan in operation.

This paper reviews ICZM process in Egypt focussing on discussing the integration between all actors to plan and implement ICZM based on interviews with key ICZM actors as well as documentary analysis and participant observation in ICZM meetings. It seeks through a critical evaluation to provide recommendations that could help to enhance the implementation of ICZM in Egypt and other developing countries.

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM); Integration; Developing countries; Egypt