Egypt issues Human Development Report after 10 year break to highlight sustainability progress

15 / 09 / 2021

• Egypt
• news
• Sustainable Development

Egypt issued its Human Development Report 2021 in tandem with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) after a 10-year break to assess the progress realized in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals.

The report – entitled ‘Development, a Right for All: Egypt’s Pathways and Prospects’ – monitors progress made over the  decade 2011-2020 on several dimensions of sustainable development. It uses the ‘Declaration on the Right to Development’, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1986, as a frame of reference for analyses.

This is the 12th report in the series of national human development reports that Egypt has been producing since 1994. The report covers a critical decade (2011-2020) in Egypt’s modern history which has witnessed two popular revolutions in 2011 and 2013, a new constitution and bold economic and social reforms.

The 2021 Report aims to provide an in-depth analysis Egypt’s pursuit of its national Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt’s Vision 2030, which is fully aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Report provides an analytical review of the policies adopted and implemented during this period and their impact on Egyptians. Building on those findings and on the Government Action Program, it puts forward a set of policies for the future that would further boost the process of human development that Egypt has initiated.

Prime Minister’s comments during launch ceremony:

Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli said the issuance of the report after a 10-year hiatus is an important indicator underlining that Egypt managed to overcome many challenges facing it.

During the launch ceremony that was attended by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, he said the economic reform program aimed mainly at securing jobs for youths, improving people’s living conditions, offering better services to citizens and realizing social justice and sustainable development within the framework of Egypt Vision 2030 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

He added that the economic reform program realized great achievements and registered record numbers. The program before the coronavirus managed during a very short period to cut unemployment and inflation rates and budget deficit, while boosting GDP and hard currency reserves.

Egypt was among very few countries worldwide that managed to maintain its positive growth rate as the growth rate reached 3.3 percent by the end of the fiscal year in 30 June 2021.

He said Egypt is planning to restore its high growth rate in the current fiscal year to reach the aspired 7 percent growth rate within three to four years.

He added that the state was also keen to adopt several social and health initiatives and programs to go in parallel with the economic reform program, expounding that the state was aware that some social strata would be affected by the economic reform program.

Takaful and Karama initiative was among those initiatives and it started with supporting six million people and managed to expand to reach more than 14.5 million people representing 3.8 million households.

He added that securing decent housing and good health and educational services was at the heart of the economic reform program.

He noted that the state’s investments in the educational sector shot up from EGP 4.9 billion in 2013 to EGP 56 billion in the current fiscal year, expounding that allocations for education over the past seven years rose 10 folds.

The state allocated last year over EGP 50 billion for the tertiary education stage to establish several facilities and develop the educational mechanism.

The state earmarked EGP 140 billion for the higher education projects, he said, noting that about 550 projects in this domain were either finalized or will be accomplished within the coming period.

As for promoting health services, the state channeled EGP 54 billion in 2021 into this sector against EGP 2.7 billion in 2013.

He added that the state launched over 20 initiatives to improve health services, including 100 million health initiative, eradicating  hepatitis virus C initiative, the presidential initiative for supporting women health, and the initiative for early detection of kidney failure.

He added that the comprehensive health insurance comes at the top of health programs adopted by the state.

He said “we are racing time to cover all the country under the comprehensive health insurance as soon as possible.”

As for securing decent housing, he said the state spent about EGP 430 billion for programs aiming at offering decent housing for all Egyptian people.

He added that the presidential Decent Life initiative aims at improving the living conditions of 58 million Egyptian citizens.

He also referred to several projects carried out by the state in the fields of transportation, electricity, energy, natural gas, sports, etc.

He also underlined that the state is adopting green recovery mechanism and focuses on merging the environmental dimension in development projects.

He added that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi gave directives to the government to consider all recommendations issued by the report and swiftly start working on putting them into effect within the coming period.

UNDP official comments during launch ceremony:

UNDP Resident Representative in Egypt Randa Aboul-Hosn said the report attests to huge strides in key areas such as education, health and adequate housing during this process. Egypt transformed and expanded its social security systems through conditional cash transfers with better targeting to include 3.8 million households in 2021, she added.

Egypt also renewed its strong commitment to consolidating the role of women as an effective, equal, and indispensable partner in achieving sustainable human development.

“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Your Excellency, Mr. President, for your strong support to enable Egyptian women’s equal participation in political, economic, and social spheres, and to strengthen measures that protect women from threats, such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), harassment, or infringement of their inheritance rights. Your Excellency’s belief in women’s full participation has been the cornerstone of the development process, that will strengthen and sustain Egypt in the decades to come,” she said.

The report highlighted Egypt’s achievements in empowering women. Women’s representation in the Egyptian legislature – with 28% in the lower House and 14% in the Senate – exceeded the constitutionally mandated minimum targets; 25% and 10%, respectively. At the executive level, the share of women reached 25% of ministers, 27% of deputy ministers, and 31% of deputy governors.

In 2020, the number of women beneficiaries of microfinance was nearly twice that of male beneficiaries, albeit with a slightly smaller share of funding balances.

The maternal mortality rate decreased from 54 to 44 (per 100,000 live births) between 2010 and 2018—a decrease of about 20%.

Aboul-Hosn added that Egypt also paid great attention to preserving its vital environmental assets and worked on reforming its comprehensive energy system, shifting to more renewable sources.

Looking ahead, the report highlights important areas of focus that can strengthen pursuit to guarantee the right to development to all its people, in line with Egypt’s Vision 2030 Development Strategy, which is fully aligned with the globally agreed Agenda 203o for Sustainable Development, and with the African Union’s Agenda 2063. These include increasing financing for development; improving the development information base for better planning; expanding and accelerating digital transformation—to improve the delivery of public services and financial transactions; and developing capacities and enhancing efficiency of executive institutions responsible for the provision of public services.

“I seize this opportunity to congratulate Her Excellency Dr. Hala El -Said for her able management of the process of preparing this report, and as well to Dr. Maya Morsy, for her great effort in coordinating the work on the report, and the report core team on the richness of data and analyses of the report,” she said.

“I am pleased to announce that we’ve agreed with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development to develop a joint program aiming to implement the proposed mechanisms in the Egypt Human Development Report 2021 are ongoing,” she added.

Recommendations by the report:

Guaranteeing the right of all Egyptians to sustainable development entails strengthening Egypt’s practical capabilities to accelerate development and speed up the pace of achievement. The report said this would require tools for implementation.

The report called for increasing resources for development investment and strengthening means for financing development.

It also called for developing the knowledge base necessary for sound development planning and follow-up.

The report urged accelerating the pace of digital transformation—including the expansion and strengthening of Egypt’s digital infrastructure, and broadening the scope of digital service provision, while guaranteeing the inclusiveness of such services.

The report called for supporting policies that target reducing poverty rates in a sustainable manner.

It also called for institutional and human resources capacity development to enhance the efficiency of state administration and raise the level of quality in providing basic public services