NCHR welcomes extending the deadline to legalise NGOs for one year

The National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) has welcomed a move by the Cabinet approving the council’s call for a one-year extension for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to legalise their status in the country. The council emphasized that this move represents a positive progress in the relation between the authorities and the council, and the State’s keenness to boost the role of civil society in serving the society and the process of development, reform and modernization in the country.

The extension comes one week after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi declared during the closing ceremony of the World Youth Forum as the ‘Year of Civil Society’ in Egypt.

The NCHR said that the Cabinet’s decision gives a chance to over 20,000 NGOs and civil society organisations to legalise their status, adding that only 31,000 NGOs from 54,000 were able to settle their legalities before the deadline. 

Some governorates only saw 35 percent of their operating NGOs able to legalise their status, it added.