The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development concludes a workshop on applying the "DEGURBA" degree of urbanization approach to produce comparable data in Egypt

Today, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development concluded a workshop on "Applying the DEGURBA Degree of Urbanization Approach to Produce Comparable Data in Egypt", which was held by the Ministry in cooperation with the United Nations Human Settlements Program (Habitat), during the period from May 14-18, with the participation of Dr. Heba Moghaieb, Head of the Regional Planning Sector, Dr. Mohamed Maghribi, Head of the Human Development Sector, Dr. Hisham Al-Helbawy, Assistant Minister of Local Development, Dr. Abdel-Khalek Ibrahim, Assistant Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities.

During the closing day of the workshop, Dr. Hiba Moghaieb noted the start of work on the allocation of investments to smart cities, the City Capital Development Programme, and the development of cities in centres "A decent life", in order to balance the services provided in urban areas with the cities of each centre, highlighted the role of the Ministry of Planning in the development of the use of technology, data development, spatial planning and spatial data, stressing the boom in spatial information infrastructure, the importance of the information system's association with policy-making and decision-making, and the establishment of clear definitions of indicators leading to the provision of real information reflecting reality.

During the speech of Major General Hisham Amna, Minister of Local Development delivered on his behalf by Dr. Hisham Al-Helbawy, he referred to the efforts of the Egyptian state to include the urban dimension in sustainable development, as the Egyptian government places at the top of its development agenda represented in Egypt’s Vision 2030 the improvement of the citizen’s quality of life and the improvement of his standard of living, To achieve the goals of the new urban agenda, and the goals of sustainable development, especially the eleventh goal, which includes making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, flexible and sustainable, stressing that Egypt was one of the first countries to adopt the new urban agenda, which was clearly reflected in serious attempts to bring about an urban development shift during the past eight years .

For his part, Dr. Abdel-Khalek Ibrahim referred to the urban strategy of Egypt, explaining that one of the most important urban problems in Egypt is the spatial imbalance, whether on the national map of the Egyptian state or the imbalance in the size of urban agglomerations, or a qualitative imbalance in terms of the relationship between rural and urban areas, adding that The importance of determining the rural-urban ratio lies in the distribution of investments, especially to the neediest places, such as Upper Egypt governorates.

The workshop included the introduction of the DEGURBA project, its methodology and applied training on its use to measure a number of indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as agreement on the operational plan for the implementation of this approach in Egypt based on what was discussed during the workshop. The workshop's closing day saw the delivery of training certificates by trainees participating in the workshop.