How many times have your projects stalled due to cash shortages? And how many funding applications have you submitted without success?
In a context where financial support for the cultural sector in the WANA region is increasingly scarce, cultural institutions are living a harsh reality despite the availability of skills, knowledge, and material resources they collectively hold.
Emtedad offers an alternative path toward reducing the cultural sector’s reliance on the donor economy. It draws inspiration from Mutual Credit Systems, which recognise and document acts of care and contribution within a community, and acknowledge those who offer them through shared credits. Variations of these systems have long existed in our societies through practices of mutual care during holidays, weddings, and celebrations of newborns, rooted in an unspoken understanding that care continues to circulate, remaining available to those who need it when they need it. In this sense, care has historically functioned as a collective reserve: less an economic transaction and more a living social fabric.
Emtedad builds on this shared understanding by grounding it in a digital system that strengthens trust, continuity, and collective use, while offering a response to the persistent cash constraints faced by cultural institutions.
Emtedad also learns from long-standing experiences with mutual credit systems around the world, where similar approaches have enabled institutions and organizations to sustainably mobilize their existing capacities and support one another without placing further strain on already limited financial resources.
Put simply, Emtedad is a network of cultural institutions that commit to sharing what they have and supporting one another, while collectively shaping the principles that guide this shared use through a digital application jointly governed by its partners. Within the network, institutions care for one another by making available surplus human capacities, such as professional experience and knowledge, as well as physical resources, such as spaces and tools. These acts of care are acknowledged through shared points, which function as a collective recognition of contribution and trust, and enable institutions to draw on the network’s shared capacities when needed.
Over the course of fourteen months, 15 institutions will take part in a collaborative research and development journey to build the Emtedad network through a pilot program structured around four main phases:
First: Forming the Network
Until March 31, 2026, we are opening the call for cultural institutions based in Cairo and Alexandria to join this journey. By completing the application form at the link below, participating institutions will support the collective process of identifying shared needs and available capacities, so they can later be mobilized in ways that benefit the network as a whole.
Second: Agreeing on Shared Principles
In April 2026, we will come together in a workshop to collectively reflect, imagine, and co-design a system of shared principles and practices that we all feel ownership over.
Third: Technical Co-Creation
At this stage, we will host a technical residency (hackathon) where programmers collaborate to translate our collective vision into a digital tool.
Fourth: Learning Through Practice
A phase dedicated to testing and refining our ideas through lived, practical use of the application.
Join the network by filling the application form here. If your organisation succeeds in joining the network, you will be receiving an initial balance equivalent to five hours of support, which can be used to benefit from the network’s collective resources.
For more information about the protocol, please refer to this link.
Contact: ashraf@taxir.xyz
Technically implemented by Taxir, this project is supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and developed in collaboration with ADEF, CILAS, Alwan wa Awtar, Makouk, the Arab Origami Center, and El Warsha Theater Troupe.
