Planning Ministry Honors Winners of Performance Excellence Initiative Amid Economic Development Meetings

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development held a ceremony to honor the winners of the Performance Excellence Incentive Initiative, on the sidelines of the annual meetings to discuss the economic and social development plan for the year 2024. The event was attended by Dr. Hala El Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Major General Hisham Amin, Minister of Local Development, and with the participation of governors from the 27 provinces in Egypt.

During her speech, Dr. Hala El Said outlined the main features of the investment plan for the year 2024/2025 within the framework of the pillars and targets of the medium-term development plan (2022/2023 - 2025/2026). She clarified that the developmental planning approach in Egypt, since the launch of President's Egypt Vision 2030, has been collaborative between the government, the private sector, and civil society. El Said highlighted the most important investments implemented last year, 2022/2023, noting the increase in public investments to reach 871.3 billion pounds last year. She explained the sectoral distribution of total investments executed, with the education, health, and social services sector accounting for about 23%, the construction sector 11.6%, utilities sector about 16%, agriculture sector more than 4%, industry sector about 6%, in addition to the extraction sector receiving about 7.7%, and the communications and information technology sector about 4.6%, along with the transportation sector about 22%, reflecting the size and distribution of investments across various sectors.

Regarding the orientations of the economic and social development plan for the year 2023/2024, El Said clarified that the main axes of the plan include constitutional entitlements, the national program for structural reforms, extracting the implications of global crises on plan targets and performance levels, Egypt Vision 2030, the General State Planning Law, the state ownership document, the role of the private sector, human development pillars, and the national strategy for human rights, followed by discussing the investment orientations of the plan, aimed at taking measures to confront inflationary pressures, develop the productive capacity of economic sectors, increase commodity supply, streamline consumption spending, and reduce the importation of non-essential goods to avoid pressure on state foreign exchange reserves. Additionally, focusing on developing state foreign exchange resources and boosting national exports while rationalizing imports, especially projects earmarked for investment spending to reduce pressure on foreign currency, and expanding partnerships with the private sector. She noted the emphasis of the economic reform program on several core sectors such as industry, agriculture, communications, and information technology as key sectors that make the Egyptian economy more resilient to shocks, as well as the tourism and logistics sectors, which have competitive advantages, in addition to developing small and medium-sized projects to increase the absorptive capacity of the Egyptian labor market.

El Said emphasized the focus on ongoing projects, which are given top priority and are being completed with implementation rates exceeding 70%, maximizing returns and citizens' perception of returns on investment, without introducing new projects except in cases of utmost necessity and with prior approval from the Cabinet, adding that plan orientations also include the decisive implementation of programs to rationalize government spending and enhance the efficiency of public investments, with close monitoring of program budgets and performance across various supporting entities, expanding the use of renewable energy sources, and intensifying public and private investments in the green economy field.

Regarding growth rates, El Said pointed out that the target is to achieve approximately 3% growth rate for the current year, 4.2% next year amid the variation in the global economy and geopolitical crises, then 4.8% to resume the growth trajectory, explaining that achieving growth is targeted in the communications sector to reach 16%, tourism 45%, construction, industry, and agriculture sectors. She also mentioned that for the first time, the population growth curve is decreasing as a result of the state's efforts in managing the population increase issue. She added that the total investments targeted in the 2024/2025 plan amount to 2 trillion pounds, emphasizing that the plan focuses on the health and education sectors as a priority in the human development plan and also stimulates the role of the private sector.

On his part, Major General Hisham Amna, Minister of Local Development, affirmed that the adoption of the developed local development programs in cooperation with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development to start implementing them during the fiscal year 2024/2025 constitutes a new leap in expanding the role of local administration in providing public services and including a larger number of services than previous local administration programs. Moreover, increasing its role in supporting local economic development, all of which are vital roles that local administration was questioned about to meet the needs of citizens.

Minister of Local Development pointed out that the developed local development programs came to establish a clear vision that identifies the interrelation between developmental gaps and projects, and the extent to which projects contribute to achieving the targeted goals and indicators, in addition to enhancing integration and geographical and programmatic linkage between proposed projects between the governorate and its centers.

Minister of Local Development stated that the Egyptian government has begun adopting a number of integrated policies during the past decade to improve governmental response to the citizens' needs in light of continuous directives and monitoring from His Excellency President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Republic, with great support from Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister. All of which aimed at maximizing the utilization of governmental investments to implement developmental and economic targets and achieve the highest return for the Egyptian citizen.

Major General Hisham Amna noted that the most important of these policies is the shift towards vertically and horizontally integrated planning, enhancing citizen participation, and increasing the capacities of local administration units in planning, executing, and managing the development process. This was reflected in the development of the local planning system to establish new methodologies and mechanisms for preparing annual investment plans for local units, ensuring the monitoring of investments within an integrated and fair programmatic framework, based on clear financing formulas, enhancing governance, stimulating participation, developing human capacities, and providing financial resources from non-traditional sources. This entails a shift in local administration from planning for individual projects to programmatic planning for local services and facilities to bridge developmental gaps through investments from the sixth chapter and the provinces' own resources, in a manner that allows for the provision of integrated public services and maximizes their economic and social returns.

Major General Hisham Amna further added that the Ministry of Local Development, in cooperation with the Ministries of Finance and Planning, seeks to develop the provinces' self-resources to alleviate the burdens on the public treasury and central transfers. In this regard, efforts are underway to launch the proposed roadmap for developing self-resources by empowering local administration units to play their role in providing services needed by citizens and preparing an executive action plan for this roadmap.

Minister of Local Development praised the joint efforts between the Ministries of Planning and Local Development to prepare the plan for the fiscal year 2024/2025 in light of the implementation of the developed local development programs and the accompanying human element development through intensive training programs for 81 employees in local administration at the level of 27 governorates to develop plans in light of the targets of the new programs, and for employees of the Ministries of Planning and Local Development to provide the necessary technical support for the provinces. Major General Hisham Amin affirmed that the Ministry of Local Development will spare no effort to further coordinate and cooperate with all ministries and provinces and provide the necessary support to stimulate participation, govern local work systems, develop human capacities, and provide financial resources from non-traditional sources, in order to achieve development targets and meet the needs of the Egyptian citizen.

On his part, Dr. Gamal Helmy, Assistant Minister of Planning and Economic Development for Sustainable Development Affairs, stated that the strategic objectives of the Performance Incentive Initiative in the provinces include enhancing the role of public investment in localizing sustainable development goals and achieving efficiency and effectiveness of public spending at the local level. He noted that the efficiency of public investment spending in Egypt has been evaluated by international institutions, pointing out the role of the National Planning Institute in setting standards for the Performance Incentive Initiative at the governorate level.

Dr. Hisham El-Helbawi, Assistant Minister of Local Development for National Projects, stated that this meeting confirms transparency in setting investment plans and providing data and investments about the plan. He referred to the developed local development programs as part of the local planning system, where Egypt faced the challenge of lack of justice in development and lack of integrated development at the beginning of 2014, as well as challenges in local economic development. Therefore, there was an urgent need to implement governance and enhance local decentralization as the basis for achieving justice in development.

Mughieb highlighted the Spatial Signature project for projects, which is being implemented within the framework of spatial planning, and its importance in the decision-making process. A precise unified basic map has been prepared for each entity present in the Ministry of Planning, disseminated to all state entities, and used in the process of monitoring the development plan and assessing the integration of projects in Egypt.

At the end of the ceremony, the winning provinces of the Best Governorates Awards in the Performance Incentive Initiative for managing public investment at the local level were announced: Qalyubia, Sharkia, Damietta, Alexandria, Aswan, and Beni Suef.