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No society is immune from disasters. Yet, resilient communities that have access to the needed information, as well as physical, economic, social, and human capitals, tend to prepare, respond, and recover from disasters better than other communities. Recently, a people-oriented approach of community resilience inducing a collaboration of various stakeholders has been advocated instead of the command and control approach widely adopted by governments. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the role of the different stakeholders in promoting the different capitals of community resilience. Hence, this paper seeks to investigate the extent to which the different stakeholders are involved in community resilience. By distributing a questionnaire on 273 of the inhabitants of a newly-established, urban sub-district for repopulating vulnerable people in Cairo, the paper offers deep insight into the roles of the government, private sector, and NGOs in promoting community resilience and illuminates how each stakeholder prioritizes different capitals.

With the sudden deaths of few animals in the Egyptian Giza Zoo (GZ), the debate was launched about zoo management and the limited resources available. In addition, the role of the different stakeholders, especially the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in zoo management was also put into the forefront. Hence, the purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the extent to which NGOs are involved in the management of the GZ. By conducting seven semi-structured interviews with the GZ director and all the three officially registered NGOs that work in the field of animal rights and protection in Cairo and Giza, the study was able to reach at the following conclusions: First, the GZ is mainly adopting the regulatory and entertainment styles of zoo management offering little room to benefit from the advantages that the NGOs can offer. Second, the role of the NGOs ranges from criticizing, advising, helping when problems arise, to holding training sessions and conferences to increase the awareness of the GZ’s workers and build their capacities. Nevertheless, the NGOs are not involved in planning or fundraising. Finally, as a result of numerous factors including contradictory expectations and characteristics between the GZ and the NGOs, the relationship between the GZ and the NGOs can be described as conflicting as indicated by Onkila (Bus Strategy Environ 20:379–393, 2011).

Encephalitozoon cuniculi is an obligate intracellular microsporidian parasite that infects a wide range of mammalian hosts. The present study investigated the prevalence of E. cuniculi in different animal hosts from different provinces of Egypt (Alexandria, Behera, and Assuit) using serological (IFAT and ELISA) and molecular (PCR) assays. A total of 324 serum and 274 urine samples were collected from seven different species of animals (cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goat, rabbit, dog, and rat). The results of serological examination confirmed the occurrence of antibodies against E. cuniculi in 38.9 % (126 out of 324) of the examined animals. The significant (P

The present study was planned to investigate the prevalence of Sarcocystis spp. among slaughtered water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) at Alexandria province, Egypt. Three hundred blood samples were collected from slaughtered buffaloes (5-7 years old). Two techniques were used to evaluate the seroprevalence of Sarcocystis spp., enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect haemagglutination assay (IHA). It was revealed that 203 (67.6 %) and 191 (63.6 %) of the tested serum samples were seropositive to Sarcocystis spp. by ELISA and IHA, respectively. The results of sensitivity and specificity of IHA relative to ELISA were 94 and 100 %, respectively. For molecular characterization of inter- and intra-species genetic polymorphism within Egyptian isolates of Sarcocystis spp. of water buffaloes, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and polymerase chain reaction-restriction length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLPs) were performed on four macroscopic isolates. The isolates represented two different geographical regions of Egypt, Alexandria and Assuit provinces. Alexandria isolates (large and small-sized cyst of the same host) and Assuit isolates (large and small-sized cyst of the same host) were used. The 18S rDNA of the macroscopic cysts were characterized, in tandem, by four restriction endonucleases, RsaI, MboI, SspI and DraI. RsaI and MboI enzymes did not show any restriction sites for all isolates, leaving the amplified fragments without cutting. SspI showed two fragments in Alexandria and Assuit small-sized isolates cut by the enzyme at 600-700-bp fragments, while Alexandria and Assuit large-sized cysts amplicons were not digested by this enzyme. The fourth enzyme, DraI, cut the PCR product of Alexandria large-sized cysts into two fragments (420-780 bp), while Assuit large-sized amplicon was not cut. It could be concluded that there was a far distance between the two local isolates (small and large sized), but there were no differences between the large-sized isolates.