Planning Ministry runs a discussion session on formulating the multidimensional poverty index in Egypt

Under the patronage of Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, a technical session was held via video conference; headed by Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister, and in the presence of Dr. Reham Rizk, Director of the Modeling and Forecasting Unit at the Ministry, and with the participation of Prof. Heba Al-Leithi, Advisor to the President of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMS), Dr. Iman Helmy, Assistant Minister of Social Solidarity for Economic Affairs and Financial Inclusion, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) working group headed by Dr. Khaled Abu Ismail, in addition to representatives from UNICEF and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, to discuss the formulation of the MPI in Egypt.




Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development stressed the need to formulate a national multidimensional poverty index that reflects the Egyptian situation, based on integrated and accurate indicators and realistic data, and is consistent with international indicators to measure multidimensional poverty.


Dr. Kamali also praised the cooperation of international bodies, praising the effort that has been made over the past months.Kamali stressed that what has been formulated so far confirms the possibility of coming up with the multidimensional poverty index at a level that allows building on it in formulating social protection policies, and supports the Egyptian government's strategies in supporting the needs of the most vulnerable groups.


 During the session, the framework for measuring the indicator was presented using data prepared according to the income, expenditure, and consumer research, and the scenarios for measuring the indicator were discussed, which include 6 dimensions (education/health/asset ownership/housing / basic services/employment) and 20 indicators, according to gender, governorate Geographical rural-urban areas.
The technical session dealt with a presentation on how to use the MAT (MPI Assist Tool) of the ESCWA team to present the results in a simplified manner to decision-makers, which would also facilitate the process of measuring the multidimensional poverty index for countries.


During the session, representatives of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics presented the most important steps taken by the agency to measure the multidimensional poverty index and the availability of data that would improve the measurement of the indicator.


This technical session comes as the conclusion of many meetings and workshops that started during November 2020 between the work team of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development represented by the Modeling and Forecasting Unit, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), the Oxford University Task Force (Poverty and Development Initiative Humanity) OPHI to consult on ways to measure the multidimensional poverty index in Egypt and the factors affecting the formulation of this indicator, as well as relying on it in formulating policies related to combating poverty.