Gov’t allocates EGP 302 billion to support social welfare in the state’s FY 2022/2023 plan: Planning Minister

Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development issued a report on the plan's objectives for the current fiscal year 2023/22 in the social welfare field.
H.E. Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, said that, out of the state's keenness to activate the mechanisms of welfare and social protection programs, the draft general budget for the year 2023/22 allocated support amounting to EGP 302.2 billion for social protection, compared to actual allocations of EGP 251 billion in 2020/2021, at a rate an increase of 17.6%.
El-Said referred to support for social security and the Takaful and Karama programs amounting to EGP 22 billion, and support for popular housing amounting to EGP 266 million.
 
The government is allocating support to the social housing program amounting to EGP 7780 million. In addition, it is also allocating about EGP 3.5 billion as support for the natural gas delivery program to homes.
El-Said added that the aforementioned activities and programs have resulted in the poverty rate declining for the first time in 2019/2020 to 29.7% after it had recorded a continuous increase in previous years until it reached its highest level (32.5%) in 2017/2018.
With the continued effectiveness of protection and social care programs, it is targeted that the rate will continue to decrease to 25% in the year of Plan 2023/22.
Moreover, the extreme poverty rate is expected to decline in the plan year to 3.8%, continuing the downward trend in 2020/19 to 4.5% after it reached its maximum in 2017/2018 (6.2%).
El-Said indicated the state's keenness to include three brand-new basic components in the 2022/21 plan system, due to their close connection with the efforts made to address the issue of poverty, the first of which is: the Egyptian Family Development Program to control population growth and improve the characteristics of the family, as the results of income, spending and consumption research indicated a growing poverty rate is directly related to the size of the family because there is a direct correlation between the poverty rate and the number of family members.
The second component is the Decent Life Initiative for the Development of Egyptian Villages. This initiative aims to achieve comprehensive development of the Egyptian countryside, address development gaps, and achieve balanced regional development by providing basic services such as (health, education, electricity, drinking water, sanitation, road paving, and housing).
The third component of the program is the empowerment of women. This is given the positive repercussions of women’s economic and social empowerment on their ability to improve their standard of living – financially and socially.
Regarding the most significant achievements of social welfare services during 2021, the report of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development indicated that the number of beneficiaries of cash support amounted to about 15 million beneficiaries, with a total of about EGP 20 billion.
The report added that the total number of beneficiaries of the ministry’s support for irregular workers affected by the Coronavirus pandemic reached about 75,000 workers. This was at a total cost of EGP 640 million.
According to the report, 16 million people received the benefits of the community development awareness program, totaling EGP 5 million.
While the total cost of training on family education amounted to EGP 730 million, and about 2 million citizens benefited from the National Project for the Protection of the Egyptian Family (Mawada), with a total cost of EGP (3) million.