The Minister of Planning and Economic Development participates in the First International Forum on Poverty Reduction in Uzbekistan

H.E. Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, participated recently in the session "Adopting the Best International Experience of Uzbekistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy", which was held during the activities of the First International Forum on Poverty Reduction in Uzbekistan.
The session was held via video conference, in the presence of Dr. Jamshid Kuchkarov, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan for financial and economic issues and poverty reduction.
El-Said explained that the conference comes at an appropriate time to discuss issues related to poverty and find solutions for more effective growth policies, job creation, and the development of small and medium enterprises, in addition to access to finance, e-commerce, financial technology, gender equality, environmental sustainability, and food security.
El-Said also confirmed that Egyptian-Uzbek relations witnessed remarkable progress during the past years, especially during the visit of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2018.
 El-Said praised the commitment of the Uzbek Ministry of Economic Development to achieving sustainable economic development through the introduction of market mechanisms based on the analysis and formulation of macroeconomic indicators, which represents one of the comprehensive strategies aimed at developing the main sectors of the economy.
El-Said reviewed the efforts of the Egyptian government during the past few years to accelerate the achievement of the first goal of sustainable development goals, which is the eradication of poverty, primarily through the Solidarity and Karama program for cash transfers and the initiative for a decent life.

El-Said indicated that the Egyptian government launched the first phase of the economic and social reform program before the outbreak of the pandemic, and the measures it included contributed to providing sufficient financial space to launch a comprehensive stimulus package.

The first phase is aimed in part at easing the burden on businesses during the pandemic, maintaining a balance between ensuring people's health and social protection, and sustaining economic activity.
El-Said touched on the stimulus package that Egypt provided during the epidemic at a rate of (2% of GDP) to mitigate the economic impact of the Corona pandemic, in addition to the Central Bank’s decision to take protective measures to provide liquidity and contain inflation.


 El-Said noted the Egyptian government's approval of a package of nearly $8 billion in financial and social protection measures; In addition to the government's keenness to vaccinate 60% of citizens, in addition to allocating 2.7 billion pounds to include 450,000 new families as beneficiaries of the Solidarity and Karama program for cash transfers.


Regarding the Egyptian government’s launch of the Takaful and Karama program, El-Said explained that Takaful, which means solidarity in Arabic, is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program that provides families with children under the age of 18 with income support linked to improving their certain behaviors related to education and health care.


El-Said added that the Takaful program's "shared responsibility" approach focuses on decisions made at the family level regarding school enrollment, improving family nutrition, and primary health care.
El-Said explained that families receive a basic monthly transfer if they meet several conditions, including that children between the ages of 6 and 18 attend at least 80 percent of school days, and that mothers and their children under the age of 6 attend at least 3 annual visits to the health care clinic.


El-Said clarified that the second part of the program's name, "Al Karama", represents an unconditional cash transfer program targeting the elderly, the poor over 65 years of age, orphans, and those with permanent and severe disabilities.



El-Said emphasized that the program focuses on transforming disability into ability and believing that anything is possible, and encourages companies to expand the employment of people with disabilities and give everyone equal opportunities.

El-Said pointed out that the total number of beneficiaries of the Solidarity and Karama program so far is 3.8 million families for 19 billion pounds, and there is a presidential directive to increase families by 4.1 million in the coming years, and the cost will rise accordingly to 21 billion pounds.



El-Said added that Egypt has made investing in people a top priority, as it believes that investment in human capital is an integral part of the country's overall development.


 El-Said pointed to the Egyptian government's launch of the national program for the development of the Egyptian countryside, "a decent life", which aims to improve the quality of life in the poorest rural communities within the framework of Egypt's Vision 2030, by reducing poverty and multidimensional unemployment rates.

 El-Said explained that the first phase of the Decent Life Initiative contributed to a significant decrease in the poverty rate by 10-14% in about 375 rural villages.

El-Said pointed out that for the first time in Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa region, the Egyptian Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund, launched 27 reports to localize the sustainable development goals in different governorates.
El-Said explained that allocating investments fairly and objectively by following a set of previously announced criteria is part of the government's efforts to improve the efficiency of public investment management, enhance equality and fairness among governorates, as well as enhance the concept of decentralization at the state and governorate levels.

El-Said stressed that all these development efforts aim primarily at searching for the best ways to reduce poverty rates by achieving best practices towards achieving sustainable development goals.