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AccueilNuméros158 (2/2025)PREMIÈRE PARTIE – Action philanth...Interview with Dr Barbara Ibrahim

PREMIÈRE PARTIE – Action philanthropique et développement au Proche-Orient : acteurs, pratiques et expertises (xxe-xxie siècles)

Interview with Dr Barbara Ibrahim

Annalaura Turiano, Malak Labib et Barbara Ibrahim
p. 157-166

Texte intégral

  • 1 Both books were published by The American University in Cairo Press.

1Barbara Ibrahim is the founding director of the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo, established in 2006. A sociologist by training, she has published works in the fields of gender and health, philanthropy, women’s employment, and youth in the Arab world. Before founding the Gerhart Center, she served as Regional Director for West Asia and North Africa at the Population Council, based in Egypt. Prior to that, she was Programme Officer for Urban Poverty and Women’s Studies at the Ford Foundation for the Middle East. Ibrahim serves on numerous international boards and is a core member of the Arab Families Working Group. On the topic of philanthropy, her notable publications include From Charity to Change: Trends in Arab Philanthropy (with Dina Sherif, 2008) and Family Legacies: Wealth and Philanthropy in the Arab World (with Heba Abou Shnief, 2017).1

To start, could you tell us about your background, your professional trajectory, and how you first became interested in philanthropy?

I am an American who was born and raised in the Midwest of the United States at a time when most of the suburbs of big cities were very white and homogenous, while immigrants, Blacks, and Latinos were mainly living in cities. So, I had a pretty sheltered upbringing. In university, I studied sociology and became very interested in understanding social systems. It was the time of the Vietnam War. As young people in the United States, we were angry and active in protesting. We couldn’t understand how a country with the ideals of the United States had ended up in these colonial wars abroad. While I was studying, I met an Egyptian at various protests who was a young college lecturer. We became involved, his plan was to finish his PhD and return to Egypt, motivated by his desire to help improve his country. He insisted that I visit Egypt before we got married so that I knew what I was getting myself into. I spent part of a very hot summer there, charmed by the people I met and history at every turn. By the time we moved to Egypt in 1975, we had married and had two children.

My PhD was started at Indiana University, with field work for the dissertation focusing on young women factory workers in Egypt. This was a new experience in their working-class culture. I looked at their coping strategies: how were they adjusting to this new status within a patriarchal society? How were they forming marriages? And, then, how did family relations work out? For example, often grandmothers had to take care of children, and this worried the young women. They felt they were modern, they had learned a lot by being out in the world, while grandmothers back home were teaching their children superstition, etc. Husbands were often willing to take on traditionally female roles at home, but only until their wives returned from work. And never in the presence of relatives. Once I spent time in Egypt, I realized that it was a country where everything was in flux. Nasser had died and now Sadat was moving away from Third World solidarity toward a Western alliance. He had hopes of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with US support. I felt there would always be work I would find fascinating and so I began my career in Egypt.

I was privileged to become a grant maker for the Ford Foundation in their regional office for a decade and then a grant seeker with the Population Council, which had its regional headquarters in Cairo. As regional director, my responsibilities stretched from Morocco in the West to Pakistan in the East. It was a very exciting time because the UN Conference on Population and Development (1994) was held in Cairo during my first years of responsibility. Adolescence, women’s reproductive rights, and access to quality health care were becoming front and center. And those were key issues that we took up and did original research on in my time in the Population Council. Then in the year 2000 my husband Saad Eddin Ibrahim ran afoul of Mubarak’s government in Egypt. Saad had always been a democracy advocate, a believer in the centrality of civil society, and he put that concept into the lexicon across the Arab world. He started writing that if republics like Egypt were grooming the sons of elected presidents to take over, this would constitute a return to monarchy. And he coined a facetious word for that, gomlukhia, which in Arabic is half republic, half monarchy. That was considered offensive to the President’s family, after Saad had taught both his wife and two sons at university. It was not seen as constructive criticism, but rather a betrayal of the Mubarak regime.

When he went to prison and was in and out over a three-year period, I became acutely aware that human rights and the democracy project would never advance as long as it was funded mainly by foreign donations. That allowed governments to discredit vocal advocates of democracy as being foreign agents. So, I thought that a logical contribution I might make when I left the Population Council was to begin a program of research and advocacy around Arab philanthropy. The book From Charity to Change (2008) that I co-edited with Dina Sherif is the result of the first two years of research activity of the Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, which I was fortunate to be able to found and develop at the American University in Cairo.

Can you tell us a bit more about the Center, its activities, and your role in it?

The Arab world was lagging behind other regions, not so much in its levels of giving but because there was almost no infrastructure to support and grow philanthropy. And by that, I mean centers for training, documentation, and advocacy. The sector grew very slowly. It remained oriented toward traditional forms of philanthropy that tend to be charitable. We were interested in beginning a public discussion about strategic ways of giving, and thinking about the root causes of problems in the Arab world rather than just humanitarian aid when the crisis happens. As the founding director, I was responsible for fundraising, hiring staff, working with them collectively on a vision and work plan, and reaching out to find like-minded partners. It was an exciting time because we were doing something new that hadn’t been done before.

Our center had two aims. One was to enhance and expand philanthropy across the Arab region. The other was civic engagement, which we saw as the other side of the same coin. In addition to the private sector and government, it was important that citizen voices and citizen preferences were backed up by organizations and their activities. And about six years into that, we began doing research on youth, because if civic engagement and better philanthropy are the goal, it is really important to start early before patterns are set. In Egypt, for example, we helped set up a network of non-governmental organizations engaged in youth civic training as part of their mandates. When the massive uprising began in 2011, we became a go-to place for information and data on young people, not just in Egypt, but in Libya, Tunisia, and other places that were experiencing similar uprisings.

You have worked across international development agencies, such as the Population Council, and in philanthropic engagement. How have these two fields intersected or influenced each other in your career?

I was very privileged to work for high-quality international organizations early in my career. Both the Population Council and Ford Foundation emphasized self-reflection and questioning what we were doing. Of course, neither of them are perfect. But I learned a lot of organizational leadership qualities from being in those two organizations. They were run more or less “by the book” in the sense that there were robust checks and balances on finances, quality control, peer review of any research before it was circulated. So, I brought all of those values to the founding of the Gerhart Center. But the downside of that is that there can always be suspicion among locals, especially those who have been harmed by International Monetary Fund policies, or who criticize international development. We always had to prove ourselves. And we decided that the best way to do that was through our publications and the conferences we held. We did a lot of work to create a pool of young scholars on philanthropy, so that they would feel they had a career path and they wouldn’t be deflected off to some other more established field. And so slowly, we built a reputation. One downside for me personally was that I never managed to become as fluent in standard Arabic as I would have liked. I never worked on a day-to-day basis in an Arabic-speaking institution. My colloquial spoken Arabic is fine, but I do regret at this point in my life that I didn’t spend more time perfecting Arabic.

How do you define philanthropy as compared to other forms of giving? What is the specificity of philanthropy as you see it and as the Center tried to promote it?

I think we always have to put a modifier in front of the term philanthropy because technically it means love of humanity. And it is defined in most places as voluntary giving for the non-governmental, non-commercial sector, aimed to solve a social need. What we were aiming to do was to increase what we called “strategic philanthropy”, which meant looking at root causes and trying to achieve scale and impact. But we never denigrated charity, as you will see in our first publication. We lauded the extent to which Muslim societies in particular have infused giving into individual consciousness and acts of faith. But, for example, just because someone is giving food boxes doesn’t make them more virtuous than someone who is doing social investing. Food boxes alone will never be enough. Just to take the case of Gaza right now, we don’t want people to die of starvation so it is critically important that the Egyptian Food Bank sends truckloads of food to keep people alive. And someone has to do that, but what we were trying to add were institutions that took a more strategic approach to basic rights and peace-building, for example. That’s the way I think about philanthropy.

Do you think there is something specific to Arabic philanthropy?

That is an interesting question. I think Arab culture, if you go back to its roots in desert societies, championed solidarity and hospitality. So Arab culture and the hearts of Arabs are very easily touched by a disaster, injustice, or a difficult human crisis. The mobilization for Gaza in the Arab world has been far greater than in the West, Africa, or even Muslim countries in Asia. In our countries, Gaza is a neighbour but also a cause for self-determination and survival of a people.

You co-edited two major books on philanthropy: the 2008 study From Charity to Social change (with Dina Sherif) and the 2017 volume, Family Legacies. Wealth and Philanthropy in the Arab World (with Heba Abou Shnief). Can you tell us more about these two books?

In 2006, when the Gerhart Center was founded, there was very little research other than on zakat and waqf, the more traditional forms of religious based charity. We saw that as a huge gap which we tried to fill by studying eight major countries which had important sectors of philanthropy. What I tried to do in the introduction and the conclusion of the book was pull out some common themes. By the time I left the Gerhart Center in 2014, a lot had changed. The Gulf had become a huge financial power in the world, their charity had grown rapidly, as well as the number of very wealthy families. Whereas, unfortunately, across much of the rest of the Arab world, it was a much more unsettled time.

In the second book, which was written after I left the Gerhart Center, our idea was to do something very different. It was not a scientific book. We interviewed 22 wealthy individuals in the Arab world and asked them some basic questions about how families were managing wealth transfers, about the parenting of children who were going to inherit wealth. So, the messages in the book were more to individuals and families coping with accelerated intergenerational gaps. Society was changing rapidly, and wealth accumulation had been tremendous. It is a book that serves more as a guide by pulling together fascinating stories we gained from the interviews. Along with my co-author Heba Abou Shneif, we talked to people who were inheriting their wealth, including the daughter of a king. We talked to a relative of an emir, whose passion was art and architecture, about how she was organizing her giving and how she was especially thinking about her daughters and their distinctive engagement in philanthropy. Others were self-made individuals, and they were completely different in their approaches. So, the book was about wealth transfer, philanthropy, and parenting. We also offer practical advice about how bequests and wills can be used effectively to support universities or other charities. So, the two books are very different, but both fascinating to have worked on.

What kind of sources did you use beyond the interviews? Did you encounter any problems accessing data and how did this constrain your research on philanthropy?

This is one of the main obstacles to social science research in most countries of the region. Philanthropy is really not different from studying family behaviour or adolescent addiction. Governments collect a tremendous amount of data on their citizens, but they hold it and don’t make it easily available. If you look at the case of Egypt, for example, no one gets permission to do original field research on civil society or civic participation anymore. If you do get permission to do research, you must apply to CAPMAS (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics) or you can buy government data, but it is often at a high price. And if you are a young, struggling researcher – not part of an institution with money – that is another barrier to obtaining statistical information.

There is now a flourishing association of Arab philanthropies, the Arab Foundations Forum, which has been a partner to the Gerhart Center. It has nearly 65 members across the Arab world and an ongoing data advocacy project. But, when it comes to governments, there is a tendency to think that data is something they need to keep for themselves rather than share openly. It’s the same across most of the Arab world, unfortunately.

What about philanthropic actors, associations, and other private actors? Were they more likely to share information? Were they more open to researchers than governments?

Absolutely. We found relatively easy access to data from the individual philanthropists we were talking to and registered entities. Now, the Arab Foundations Forum has a regular survey, not just of their members, but of all philanthropies they can get data for. I would say a healthy percentage of philanthropies send that data back so it can be published.

Our special issue seeks to explore the intersection between philanthropy and development policies in the Middle East from a long-term perspective. In your view, how have philanthropic actors historically contributed to development policies? What kind of interaction exists between public and private spheres in the field of development?

To complete your question, I think, we have to add politics into the mix. I can just give you one example from Egypt that explains how that has played out and affected philanthropy. Al-waqf, the idea of an endowment has been present in Islam since the very beginning. It enables people to put land or a building or other asset into a perpetual endowment. The income from that entity supports a charitable cause. In the 1950s, following a national revolution, there was a recognition that some wealthy landholders had used waqf-s to shelter their wealth and to avoid taxation and other forms of civic financial support. Instead of reforming waqf-s, the regime simply banned the practice and nationalized the assets of existing waqf-s. It was an earthquake in a society in which that had been a major pillar of philanthropy.

There is now a Ministry of Endowments in the Egyptian government, in existence since the mid-1950s that is completely untransparent. The families whose endowments were seized cannot get them back, cannot find out even if the purpose of those waqf-s is being served or not. One of the things we did at the Gerhart Center was serious lobbying within Egyptian religious circles, but also with the legislature at the time when a new constitution was being drafted after the 2011 uprising. There was argument in the Constitutional Drafting Committee about whether waqf should continue to be forbidden because it might support Islamic militants. We stressed that it is a fundamental part of faith and should be encouraged but better regulated.

There is now an article in the Egyptian Constitution, which states that every citizen has the right to establish a waqf, but it has never been implemented because the government has had no will or pressure to do so. But at least now it is enshrined in law, and there will be an opportunity at some point in the future for us to have endowments. This is just one of the fights that have been ongoing.

Nasser in many ways was a great modernizer. He opened up universities to anyone who could meet the academic criteria. It is the reason why my husband got to Cairo University and then received a government fellowship to get his PhD in the United States. So, I am not mentioning this to disparage a particular regime, but some things got stuck in the 1950s and 1960s as these countries were gaining their liberation and were run by army-based regimes. The struggle of the last 30 years has been to wrest more power from governments and have a more equal balance or at least a voice for civil society and philanthropy.

In 2008, you wrote that governments in the region have rarely encouraged philanthropic organisations. Do you think that the relationship between governments and philanthropic organisations has changed since then in Egypt and in other countries of the region?

I would say it has. If we again take Egypt as an example, NGOs were permitted as long as they didn’t cross a red line into overt politics or dissent. But it was kind of a neglected field. The Ministry of Social Solidarity that oversaw civil society was not one of the leading ministries or one that those in power paid much attention to. But I think the uprising was a watershed, because elements of the new government that took over after the Arab Spring recognized that liberal education and NGO organizations had been incubators for the kind of young people who instigated the uprisings, not just in Egypt, but across the Arab world. As a consequence, the new regimes had to be much more aware and in control of what NGOs were doing.

While there was always a draconian NGO law in place, even in Mubarak’s time, there were ways around it. Now you either operate as a private enterprise or an NGO and you are very closely regulated. But the government needs help, it cannot provide adequate basic education, upgrade health care, feed the poor, etc. So, in Egypt, the national government has endorsed a small number of very large national NGOs, organizations that don’t rock the boat, but are doing important work. I am not discrediting them. We need them very much. Those major NGOs work closely with the government effectively to relieve hunger, provide preschools, and respond to emergency relief needs in marginalized communities.

That model has emerged over the last 20 years in Egypt and also in places like Jordan, which has a much more securitized state than in the past. Many Arab foundations and NGOs have been forced to register in Europe or North America. But there are also stories of local resistance to overregulation among human rights associations and NGOs.

Finally, what links are being forged between capitalist economies, philanthropy, and development? How do you view the phenomenon of corporate philanthropy in the Arab world?

Corporate philanthropy was one of the main areas that we wanted to understand better. Given that corporations have far greater freedom of operation than the civil society sector when it comes to utilizing their funds, if they were to become strategic and serious in their giving, this could be a tremendous boost. And we found in our early research a number of incredibly important role models for how that was happening. For example, Aramex, which is a Jordanian DHL equivalent that operates in the Arab world and Africa, began using its excess capacity on airplanes to send humanitarian supplies into famine zones or conflict-ridden areas. What we have learned is that while there is a lot of corporate philanthropy which is simply public relations, there are really some innovative and groundbreaking corporations, using the tools of social investing and cross subsidy. For example, an eye surgery hospital that takes full payment for eye surgery from those who can afford it can offer free or low-cost eye surgery for those who can’t.

I personally believe that corporate philanthropy has a lot of untapped potential, but when there is an economic decline, when there is chaos or upheaval in a country, corporate philanthropy has too often backed away from philanthropy while civil society has stayed the course. That is a generalization, but I think it has quite often been the case. Now, there is a more recent hybrid model, which is neither corporate philanthropy nor private philanthropy, which is when a corporation gives an annual amount to endow a philanthropy which is registered, yet it doesn’t decide how this money will be spent. A board of trustees is empowered to make those decisions. That has been an interesting model. It has been used all over Europe and the United States, and it limits that impulse to make more money or find more clients from philanthropic giving.

We observe that social business is also an idea that is developing quickly, especially among young entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs want to make profit, but they also want, through the work of their companies, to solve a social problem. It could be solar energy, or it could be good quality schools organized and registered as a company, but serving a public good. If they do it ethically and philanthropically, these private schools will, for example, take market rate tuition from wealthy families and have scholarships for poor families. A proper infrastructure is now growing up around social purpose investing in the Arab world. I’m not someone who wants to throw over capitalism, because I don’t think we really have a better system in the world today for regulating the complexities of global finance, but I do think it has to be more carefully regulated. I am much more of a Scandinavian social Democrat in the way I view what societies ought to be doing. There are basic things like education and health care that should be a government responsibility and which philanthropy can augment but never completely replace. The growing popularity of public-private partnerships reflects that spirit and should make ample room for civil society as well.

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Notes

1 Both books were published by The American University in Cairo Press.

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Annalaura Turiano, Malak Labib et Barbara Ibrahim, « Interview with Dr Barbara Ibrahim »Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 158 (2/2025) | 2025, 157-166.

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Annalaura Turiano, Malak Labib et Barbara Ibrahim, « Interview with Dr Barbara Ibrahim »Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée [En ligne], 158 (2/2025) | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2025, consulté le 23 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/24244 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15c94

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Auteurs

Annalaura Turiano

Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence, France
annalauraturiano[at]gmail.com

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Malak Labib

Centre Marc Bloch / Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin
malak.labib[at]cmb.hu-berlin.de

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Barbara Ibrahim

Founding director, John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, American University in Cairo

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