Ministry of Planning issues the executive summary of the 3rd VNR for Egypt

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development issued the executive summary of the third voluntary national report (VNR), which was presented by Dr. Hala El-Said at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development presented Egypt's 3rd VNR virtually in New York during the period from 6-15 July 2021.
El-Said asserted that Egypt's 3rd VNR came within the framework of its comprehensive strategy for sustainable development: Egypt Vision 2030, which was launched in 2016 through a participatory approach, with its economic, environmental, and social dimensions.


El-Said pointed out that updating Egypt’s Vision 2030 is due to the need to confront many challenges, which include water scarcity, population increase, global and regional geopolitical developments, in addition to absorbing the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Arab Republic of Egypt submitted its report among 43 countries that submitted reports for this year.

Egypt is one of only ten countries to submit a national report for the third time.

The report discusses the governing framework and policies supporting the development process in Egypt.

Moreover, it reviews the progress made in each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on tracking performance compared to the previous report for Egypt in 2018.

The aforementioned VNR represents a mechanism for developing and accelerating the implementation of sustainable development goals.

Egypt’s 3rd VNR included the challenges that represented an obstacle towards the implementation of the UN goals.

It (Egypt’s 3rd VNR) developed a future view of the country's priorities during the next stage to confront those challenges and move forward towards achieving sustainable development.
The process of developing the report followed an integrated participatory approach, where many workshops and meetings were held with stakeholders from ministries, government agencies, the private sector, civil society, and international partners.

The report begins by reviewing the governing frameworks through which Egypt works to achieve sustainable development, which is Egypt's Vision 2030.
 Egypt's Vision 2030 is the national version of the UN sustainable development agenda. The vision has gone through a comprehensive modernization process to reflect the multiple local, regional, and international developments that have emerged since its first launch in 2016.

 The updated version of Egypt’s Vision 2030 is characterized by great consistency with both the UN goals and the ambitions of Africa’s Agenda 2063.

The governing frameworks also include the economic and social reform program in its two phases. The first phase (2016-2019) resulted in an improvement in many macroeconomic indicators, most notably rapid growth rates, controlling inflation, reducing the budget deficit, and paying attention to social protection. 

While the second phase launched in 2021 and entitled“Structural Reforms" focuses on improving the competitiveness and business climate in Egypt.
The second phase supports the productive sectors, to ensure the sustainability of the positive results achieved during the first phase.

The aforementioned phase comes within the governing frameworks to localize the sustainable development goals.

It aims to transfer the process of implementing the sustainable development goals from the central level to the local level in all of Egypt’s governorates.


The second phase also aims to benefit from the competitive advantage of each governorate, to ensure the achievement of geographical justice for the development process.

The governing frameworks through which Egypt works to achieve sustainable development include; an evidence-based policy, as the Egyptian state believes that the success of policies stems from its ability to address problems and challenges. 
Egypt 3rd VNR then moves to present the various developments in each of the 17 UN goals through creating an objective assessment of the progress made in each goal, based on the latest available data, especially those related to the indicators agreed upon by the United Nations.

It includes sectoral strategies, programs, initiatives, and interventions of all kinds with an attempt to assess their impact, also by focusing on developments since 2018. In some of the objectives, the most important challenges that the state seeks to understand their roots and effectively confront them are reviewed.
Updates in the UN goals also include examples of partnerships related to each goal with the private sector, civil society, international organizations, and other development partners.
 These updates aim to clarify that development work in Egypt is not the monopoly of the state, as other institutions actively participate in initiatives, projects, or programs that contribute to progress towards each of the 17 SDGs.


The voluntary report also reviews the prominent challenges at the national level, which includes tracking the actions taken to meet the challenges referred to in the previous report in 2018, namely: data, financing, governance, and population growth.

 The report also includes challenges that have emerged clearly in recent years such as digital inequality, especially between urban and rural areas.
The report concludes by reaffirming Egypt's commitment to achieving sustainable development goals in the shortest possible time, using some accelerators, including digital transformation and information technology, effective local, regional and international partnerships.