On October 26, 2021, the Council hosted Prof. Khaled Zakaria, head of the macroeconomic policies unit at the Institute of National Planning, and one of the main contributors to the United Nations Human Development Report in Egypt 2021, launched by the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development in Egypt under the title “Development is a right for all: Egypt is the path and the path” on September 14, under the patronage and presence of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in the new administrative capital; To talk about the most important aspects of the report, and the data and indicators it contained about the development process in Egypt. The meeting was opened by Ambassador Dr. Mounir Zahran, President of the Council, and the two ambassadors, Dr. Ezzat Saad, Director of the Council, Hazem Khairat, Dr. Sadeq Abdel Aal, Mr. Abdel Ghaffar Hanish, and a number of researchers interested in the Egyptian issue participated.
Dr. Zakaria pointed out that the report provides a comprehensive picture of the events, policies and reform programs that Egypt witnessed between 2010 and 2021, and differs from previous reports, which focused on a limited number of development axes; The current report addresses many issues in the areas of economic reform, social protection, education, health, and sustainable development. The report is the twelfth in a series of national human development reports that Egypt has been issuing since 1994, and it comes after a ten-year hiatus since the last issue in 2010. In this context, Dr. Zakaria pointed out that Egypt has achieved many achievements. In all areas, according to the operative report, which was drafted according to purely objective criteria. For example: improvement in indicators of access to pre-university education between 2010 and 2020, raising recovery rates from hepatitis C by more than 98, and implementing expanded programs to support social housing and urban development, including the development of unplanned areas that lack services, as well as Increasing coverage of drinking water and sanitation services, all in conjunction with improving macroeconomic indicators, and achieving positive growth rates despite the Corona-19 pandemic, which led to achieving a growth rate of 3.6% in 2019/2020 and 2.8% in 2021/2020 with an expected rate of growth. Growth of 5.4% in the fiscal year 2021/2022.
He added that despite this, there are still many steps to be taken; Among them, strengthening the country’s governance systems, combating overpopulation, as well as strengthening financing for development; Developing the information base for sound development planning; Expanding and accelerating digital transformation in public services and financial transactions; And the development of executive institutions to enhance the efficiency and quality of public service delivery.
