A few minutes before breaking the fast, volunteers from the El-Amana association work to ensure everything is ready. In an alley in Faisal, a working-class district of Giza, the large city neighboring Cairo, they lined up four large tables covered with plastic tablecloths. Under the frills of multicolored garlands strung overhead, around sixty women, men and children wait for the call to prayer to begin iftar, the meal to break the fast.
During Ramadan, dozens of popular tables of this type spread throughout this district not far from the pyramids, a maze of narrow streets overlooked by tall, densely populated buildings. Nicknamed “Mawa’id el-Rahman” (charity tables), these banquets where free meals are served for residents in need, often financed by charitable organizations, benefactor neighbors or neighborhood notables, are a tradition in Egypt.
This evening, in front of El-Amana, all the chairs are occupied. “Usually, we always have extra meals left over which we distribute elsewhere in the neighborhood. But the number of beneficiaries has exploded. The one hundred and thirty meals we prepare a day are no longer enough. People are getting poorer”recognizes a volunteer from the association who preferred to remain anonymous.
Four days before the start of Ramadan, Egyptian authorities announced they were implementing a floating exchange rate to comply with demands from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led to a historic devaluation of the Egyptian pound. In an instant, the national currency lost nearly 60% of its value against the dollar.
The measure followed months of liquidity crisis, marked by the emergence of a black market, during which the Egyptian pound continued to depreciate until reaching a rate of 70 pounds to 1 dollar in January . The collapse resulted in a record price increase. In February, inflation stood at 36% according to Capmas, the national statistics institute, primarily affecting the price of basic foodstuffs which exploded by 70% in one year.
Meat “one day in three”
In recent weeks, in an unexpected rescue operation, the Egyptian regime has concluded in quick succession the signing of historic financial agreements with the United Arab Emirates (35 billion dollars), the IMF (8 billion dollars) and the Union European (7.4 billion euros). If these announcements had the effect of somewhat brightening the horizon of the Egyptian economy, offering a breath of fresh air to the state budget, the promised liquidity has not yet trickled down to the wallets of Egyptians.
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