A Nested Governance System for ICZM in Egypt Óscar García-Aguilar (1) , María Merino (1,2) , Pino González-Riancho (1,3) , Marcello Sanò (4) and Raúl Medina (1,5) (1) Environmental Hydraulics Institute “IH Cantabria”, University of Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain Tel: +34-942-201 616 Fax: +34-942-266 361 Email: gaguilaro@unican.es (2) Email: merinogm@unican.es (3) Email: grianchop@unican.es (4) Centre for Coastal Management, Gold Coast campus, Griffith University, QLD 4222, Southport, Australia Tel: + 610755528520 Email: m.sano@griffith.edu.au (5) Email: medinar@unican.es Abstract Despite the considerable effort in ICZM over several decades, effective governance of the coastal zone remains a considerable challenge in many parts of the world. This paper presents the nested governance system proposed for the Egyptian Northwest coast which has been designed to arrange and organize the state organizations, private sector corporations, civil society and citizens who are or want to be active in and utilize the resources of the coastal zone, establishing incentives and parameters for their behavior, and creating circumstances for collaborative management. Introduction Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is an established management process at the international level striving for the sustainable use of coastal areas (Cicin- Sain and Kneth, 1998; Kay and Alder, 2005). However achieving the aspirations for ICZM is complex not least because of the many human activities and diverse regulatory