This paper looks at the different roles of NGO's in the urban development of slum areas. Due to the budget deficit by different countries, and the lack of private sector investment in the development of slums, the need has emerged for the participation of other parties in the urban development processes. In Egypt, the State has announced the year 2020, as the end of the unsafe slums; in fact, the role of NGOs is essential to grantee the sustainability of the development and renewal projects that took place during the last years.
The literature review investigated the NGOs' participation in various roles of the urban development in slums, followed by a discussion of lessons learned from international case studies that lead to NGOs active participation. The theoretical part of this paper, has applied inductive and analytical methods. Following the literature review, it discusses the definition of slums and informal areas internationally and nationally. In Egypt, The Informal Settlements Development Fund (ISDF) has classified the informal areas into unplanned and unsafe areas and has classified the unsafe areas into four degrees according to severity. The paper also examines the concept of urban development of the human settlements that suffer from social, economic, and urban problems. The paper also presents the historical background of the rise of NGOs role in the urban development in Egypt. The practical study relied on the case study of Zeinhum housing development project and evaluate its current situation in 2020. This project is one of the first Egyptian models in which an NGO (Egyptian red crescent) was a principal partner in the development project. In the research, a sample of the area residents was interviewed to identify the most critical problems in 2020. Moreover, the research has identified the current situation through several visits to the project during February and March of 2020.
The research found that NGOs' role is not a sole role; there is a need for a sustainable partnership with the local community, where NGOs are a partner and not the principal actor. The NGOs should support the relationship between the State and society by creating community-based groups, whose goal is self-monitoring, guaranteeing the durability of the upgrading projects.