Planning Ministry holds meeting to discuss achievements of the Economic Prosperity Working Group in 2020/2021

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development held recently a meeting of the Working Group on Economic Prosperity headed by Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development, in cooperation with the Regional Representative of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.




The meeting was held with the participation of ministries, concerned national authorities, and United Nations agencies, where the discussions went around the most important results and achievements of the group's work during the past year and possible aspects of cooperation during the next year 2021/2022.



Kamali pointed to the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development's keenness to cooperate with all international partners to learn about international experiences on the one hand and to ensure the development of indicators for the application of local policies following international standards and indicators.


The Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development also referred to the importance of benefiting from the proposed policy packages resulting from the activities of the Economic Prosperity Working Group, and the need to translate them into concrete interventions, measures, and activities in line with the priorities of the Egyptian state and support the achievement of sustainable development, especially Egypt's Vision 2030.


The meeting touched on the most important achievements of the Economic Prosperity Working Group, focusing on entrepreneurship and medium, small and micro enterprises, as the number of beneficiaries of business development services and financial support in 2020 reached 2068, and the number of supported companies, whether they were start-ups or existing institutions, reached 103,746 companies.


The number of people benefiting from various skills training reached 255,323 in 2020, compared to 29,863 in 2019 and 120,540 in 2018, which enhances employment opportunities. Concerning economic policies, work has been made with 12 government institutions in 2020 to raise awareness about measures, social and economic policies, and management improvement systems and measures, according to Kamali.

The meeting also discussed the most important activities concerned with mitigating the impact of the Corona pandemic on the Egyptian economy, namely supporting the resilience of the economic recovery of the Corona pandemic in Egypt through digitization, global value chain disruptions, industrial policy, and strategic outlook for the manufacturing sector in Egypt.


The meeting also dealt with the joint action plan of the Economic Prosperity Working Group for the new fiscal year 2021/2022, which seeks to strengthen the efforts of the Egyptian government in achieving comprehensive and sustainable economic development that is flexible and provides decent job opportunities.


 The most important goals of the joint business plan are to support about 512,394 companies, whether emerging or existing institutions, through strategies, mechanisms, and comprehensive programs that support entrepreneurship and small, medium, and micro-enterprises.


 The plan also aims to increase and improve job opportunities through the work of career counseling programs to facilitate the transition from the school stage to the labor market, provide technical and vocational training to develop the skills and competencies required in the labor market, and encourage private sector participation in creating job opportunities.



The plan also includes developing and designing evidence-based policies and measures in the areas of investment, trade, industry, and responding to the Corona crisis, among others.


The Economic Prosperity Working Group is a working group emanating from the strategic partnership framework between Egypt and the United Nations for development in Egypt 2018-2022.


The Prosperity Working Group is the basic document that governs the strategy of cooperation between the two sides over the past five years to support national efforts towards achieving the sustainable development goals and the sustainable development agenda “Egypt Vision 2030”.


This is done through the implementation of development projects worth about $ 1.2 billion in four main areas included in the document: comprehensive economic development / economic prosperity, social justice, environmental sustainability, human resource management, and the empowerment of women.


Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development undertakes the supervision of the implementation of the part of comprehensive economic development through its co-chairing with the UNDP of the Prosperity Result Group, which aims to follow the strategic framework signed to support Egypt so that by the year 2022 it has adopted paths of comprehensive and sustainable development.