During her participation, today in the symposium "Sustainable Development Goals after the Coronavirus Pandemic" organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) Sustainable Development Studies Program

Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Dr. Hala El-Said, participated on Monday (via the video conference feature) in the symposium on "Sustainable Development Goals after the Coronavirus Pandemic" organized by the Sustainable Development Studies Program at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
The seminar witnessed the participation of Dr. Mostafa El-Feki, Director of the Library of Alexandria.During her speech, Dr. Hala El-Said asserted that the emerging Coronavirus crisis exceeded in its severity and economic repercussions all previous crises the world had witnessed.El-Said explained that it resulted in developing countries suffering from a lack of the funding they need for the year 2020 to keep them on the right track to achieve development goals.This fund is estimated at $ 1.7 trillion, (according to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

El-Said added that the crisis caused a gap of $ 1 trillion in public spending on measures to recover from the Coronavirus, compared to what is spent in developed countries, with a decrease in foreign direct investment flows by up to 40% in developing economies during the year 2020, which was reflected. The HDI decreased significantly in 2020 for the first time since it began measuring it in 1990.El-Said reviewed some measures identified by the United Nations Development Program required for the recovery phase from the effects of the pandemic until 2030 within the framework of the sustainable development goals, including providing social protection and respecting the rights of all in a more solidarity and equality manner, investing in capacity development focusing on the health sectors and addressing income inequalities.The recovery measures included concrete steps towards inclusion and the promotion of diversity, including gender equality, governance, and accelerating the pace of digital transformation, spreading peace through the establishment of peaceful institutions and societies capable of resilience, preparedness, and risk management.In the context of talking about the Egyptian development experience, El-Said pointed out that Egypt has achieved the goals of the many indicators set by Vision 2030 in its three dimensions: economic, social, and environmental so that Egypt ranked 83 on the global level in the UN Sustainable Development Report issued recently by the University of Cambridge.Egypt has also reached an achievement that surpasses the goals of Egypt’s Vision 2030 in many indicators, including infrastructure, availability of services to citizens, drinking water services, sanitation, electricity, quality of infrastructure, and competitiveness of travel and tourism.El-Said added that the state began implementing many legislative and institutional reforms, which contributed to achieving total stability and comprehensive growth, which was reflected in the positive indicators that the Egyptian economy witnessed during the year 20/2020 and before the occurrence of the Covid 19 crisis, as the rate of economic growth reached about 5.6% in the first half. “From the year 20/2020, the unemployment rate decreased to less than 8%, the average inflation rate decreased to about 5%, and the foreign exchange reserves recovered to cover more than 8.5 months of imports,” El-Said said.El-Said explained that the expectations of international institutions were positive regarding the Egyptian economy, which is considered the only economy in the region that achieved positive growth rates in light of the crisis, as the rate of GDP growth reached 3.6% for the fiscal year 19/2020. “It was planned to achieve a growth rate of 5.8% in the year 20/2020, and 6% in 20/2021, (before the impact of the repercussions of the Covid 19 virus),” she explained.Egypt was among a limited number of countries in the world that achieved positive growth in light of the pandemic, and this good growth performance was accompanied by an increase in the employment rate and a decrease in unemployment rates, which fell to 7.2% in the second quarter of (20/2021), in addition to a significant decline in the rate of inflation which reached 4.9% in February 2021.El-Said pointed out that among the positive indicators, which represent important signs through which one can see the fruits of development initiatives and efforts made by the Egyptian state in recent years, the poverty rate in all regions in rural and urban areas has decreased to 29.7% compared to 32.5% in 2017/2018.In this context, El-Said reviewed the set of proactive policies that the Egyptian government has taken to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, foremost of which is supporting the affected sectors: by reducing financial burdens and providing liquidity and credit; In the forefront of which is the tourism, aviation, shipping and travel sector, and the medium, small and micro enterprises sector.The proactive policies aimed to mitigate the effects of what these sectors witnessed in terms of closure and complete or partial stoppage of establishments and the negative effects of that on employment, in addition to supporting the affected groups: by supporting regular and irregular employment through a fund Emergency; (The presidential grant, which was scheduled for three months, then was extended under the direction the President for another three months).The Egyptian government will also work to take advantage of the databases that include about 6 million advanced workers to obtain the grant on the consequences of the Corona pandemic, to develop appropriate training programs in preparation for creating suitable job opportunities for them.El-Said pointed out the revitalization of the economy by increasing incomes and investments in priority sectors: this includes providing a stimulus package of about EGP 100 billion (2% of GDP), in addition to adopting incentive monetary and fiscal policies that include lowering interest rates, postponing and returning scheduling debts of some sectors, financing packages, and postponing tax payments and some sovereign dues.On the social protection measures taken by the Egyptian state, El-Said referred to the launch of the first phase of the national project for the development of the Egyptian countryside, "A Decent Life", in January 2019; Which targeted 375 villages and contributed to mitigating the effects of the Coronavirus on the lives of 4.5 million citizens, which helped reduce poverty rates in some villages by 14 percentage points, and improved the rate of access to basic services by about 50 percentage points in some villages, and raised the efficiency of 12,000 houses.El-Said went on that, in continuation of the success achieved in the first phase, the second phase of the initiative was launched within the framework of the National Project for the Development of the Egyptian Countryside, which extends for three years, targeting all the villages of the Egyptian countryside (4,500 villages in which half of the population of Egypt live - 50 million citizens).El-Said explained that among the priorities comes the Egyptian state’s interest in the localization of development, or what is called “Local Localization of Sustainable Development Goals,” intending to achieve the concept of “inclusive, sustainable, and balanced regional development”, as one of the main pillars of Egypt's 2030 vision.
El-Said pointed out what the Egyptian state is doing to increase public investments by focusing on several promising sectors that represent a basic pillar to drive growth in the next phase, such as the sectors of health services and medical supplies, agriculture, food industries, communications, and information technology, construction, construction, and manufacturing industries.
El-Said stressed that the health and education sectors are of the utmost importance to the Egyptian state, as they are the main tool for development and building human capabilities and the main entry point for the advancement of society.“The state also attaches utmost importance to the communications and information technology sector and the infrastructure for digitization, in the context of enhancing the trend towards digital transformation,” She added.About the green economy, El-Said indicated that in light of the Egyptian government giving priority to sustainable financing and its pursuit of consistency of public investment with the principles of the green economy, following Vision 2030, the government adopts a national strategy for the transition to a green economy, explaining that work is underway to achieve 30% of investment projects with plans.“The state's concepts of environmental sustainability and green economy will increase to 50% in the next three years,” She noted.El-Said concluded her speech by referring to the challenge of increasing population growth rates that devours the results and fruits of the achieved growth and even threatens more economic and social pressures and challenges, which lead to a decline in the return from development efforts between provinces. Therefore, the state works to manage the population issue and improve the population characteristics such as education, health, job opportunities, economic empowerment, and culture while maximizing the utilization of human resources through the implementation of a different package of training programs, capacity building, and expansion of investment in people, she explained.