Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development for Sustainable Development Affairs participates in a session dubbed "Towards Comprehensive Governmental Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Egypt," as part of the activities of the second day of the high-level conference of the "Supporting Public and Economic Governance in Egypt" project.

Today, Assistant Minister of Planning and Economic Development for

Sustainable Development Affairs Dr. Mona Essam, attended a session

titled "Towards a Comprehensive Governmental Implementation of the

Sustainable Development Goals in Egypt" held during the activities of

the second day of the high-level conference of the project "Supporting

Public and Economic Governance in Egypt" funded by the European Union,

and implemented by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Economic

Development (OECD), on the 8th and 9th of February.

During the session, Dr. Mona Essam said that Egypt was one of the

first countries to develop a national strategy for sustainable

development, embodied in Egypt's Vision 2030, which was launched by

the Egyptian state in February 2016, as the national version of the

national agenda of the Unite Nations (UN) Agenda 2030.

Furthermore, Essam added that in light of the dynamic nature of the

development planning process, and given that Egypt's Vision 2030 is a

living document affected by political, economic and social changes at

the local, regional and international levels, the Ministry of Planning

and Economic Development , in 2018, the need to update this vision,

for a number of reasons including ensuring consistency. The National

Agenda with each of the UN Sustainable Development goals (Agenda

2030), as well as with the African Agenda 2063. She also emphasized

the interdependence of the three dimensions of sustainable development

as all the main and general strategic goals will include the three

economic, social and environmental dimensions. She explained that as

urgent issues have risen in the Egyptian context they had to be

included, and how to strategically deal with them; such as population

growth, water scarcity.. etc.. In addition to keeping up with the

changes that occurred in the indicators of the Egyptian economy after

the implementation of the economic reform program in 2016, enhancing

the speed of response and effective dealing with emerging global

challenges and rapid forecasting, preparing for any local, regional

and international developments, and increasing the economy's ability

to face external shocks (Al For example, COVID-19, the

Russian-Ukrainian war, etc.).

In addition, Essam added that since the first steps of the updating

process, the government, represented by the Ministry of Planning and

Economic Development, has adopted a participatory approach that

ensures the participation of all concerned parties in this national

effort to chart a better future for the people of Egypt and achieve

sustainable development to guarantee the rights of future generations.

The modification process was launched with the participation of all

ministries, agencies, national experts, and a large number of national

experts in the fields of economy, society, environment and governance,

who made great contributions and efforts in the process of updating

"Egypt's Vision 2030", noting that the modernization process began

with the help of a number of experts to monitor the economic, social

and environmental gaps in the first version of "Egypt's Vision 2030".

Then, teams composed of a large group of experts were chosen to draft

working papers to fill the identified gaps, and in parallel, work was

done with different ministries and national agencies to formulate

sectoral working papers as an initial step for the updating process.

Besides, Essam added that with the spread of the Covid-19 virus

pandemic and its economic and social repercussions affecting all

countries across the globe, including Egypt, it was necessary to

conduct a new review of the goals and indicators of the vision to

include the changes that occurred at the local, regional and global

levels, to include mechanisms for rapid recovery, and the ability to

absorb shocks. Then, this was followed by the process of compilation

and review, whereby a group of experts and academics in various fields

was consulted, and the experts relied in their work on all the inputs

of ministries and national agencies from working papers as well as

published sectoral strategies, and the repercussions resulting from

the outbreak of the Corona pandemic were also included.

Additionally, Essam explained that a specialized team from the

Ministry of Planning and Economic Development has developed a

framework to follow up on the implementation of the updated vision,

which includes a number of strategic indicators and their targets. To

ensure its verifiability in the light of the academic and practical

experiences of the experts, the updated draft version of "Egypt's

Vision 2030" and its targets were sent to all national authorities for

opinion.  After making the required amendments according to the inputs

of the national authorities, the updated version of "Egypt's Vision

2030" was presented and discussed in the national dialogue sessions.

Essam indicated that the updated version of Egypt's Vision 2030

includes four governing principles that represent the strategic

pillars, namely, the human being is the center of development,

achieving justice and accessibility, enhancing flexibility and

adaptability, and achieving sustainability. The heart of the vision is

represented by six strategic objectives from which the general

objectives emerge. The strategic objectives are to improve the quality

of life of the citizen and improve his standard of living, social

justice and equality, an integrated and sustainable environmental

system, a diversified and competitive knowledge economy, advanced

infrastructure, governance and partnerships. In order to accelerate

the achievement of the goals, seven possibilities have been

identified, which are providing financing, achieving technological

progress and innovation, promoting digital transformation, producing

and making data available, creating a supportive legislative

environment, providing a system of supportive cultural values, and

controlling population growth.

Also, Essam touched on the main differences between the first and

updated version of Egypt's Vision 2030, as the first version of the

vision relied on separating the three dimensions of sustainable

development (economic, social and environmental), while in the updated

vision, each strategic goal and general goal of the vision's goals

reflects the three dimensions. Taken together, the updated vision was

divided into a set of governing principles that represent the general

framework of the vision and must be taken into account when achieving

the strategic and general goals of the vision along with defining a

set of possibilities that contribute to accelerating the realization

of the national vision, in addition to linking the strategic

objectives of the vision with the UN Agenda 2030 and Africa’s Agenda

2063. Then, she added that the updated vision focuses on setting a

strategic vision for the Egyptian state up to 2030 as well as

quantitative targets to measure the extent of progress achieved,

provided that national agencies and stakeholders undertake the process

of implementing the vision through their sectoral strategies and

action plans that must comply with the national vision (Egypt Vision

2030), while the first version identified the programs and projects

necessary to achieve the goals.

For her part, Deputy Head of the Sustainable Development Unit at the

Ministry of Planning Mrs. Aya Nawar pointed out the importance of

linking the ministries' plans to the long and medium-term plans, and

the available financial resources must be taken into account when

preparing the ministries' annual plans.

The session brought together representatives from sustainable

development units in the ministries and sustainable development

officials in the governorates to discuss the possibility of enhancing

coordination between different levels of government to implement

Egypt's Vision 2030, including goals related to gender equality, youth

representation, and inclusion.

After delivering the keynote address of the session, the attendees

were divided into working groups to participate in the discussions

Following the "Global Café" model for participation guiding questions,

a rapporteur was selected from each group to present the group's

conclusions in the closing discussion.