Ministry of Planning holds a workshop to launch pilot activities to measure illicit financial flows in Egypt

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, headed by Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning, and in coordination with the Sustainable Development Unit, headed by Dr. Mona Essam, Head of the Unit at the Ministry, held a workshop to launch pilot activities to measure illegal financial flows in Egypt.
The workshop took place with the participation of representatives of various Egyptian ministries, agencies, and government bodies, international partners from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Development Program, and representatives of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development referred to the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the ministry represented by the Egyptian government and the office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Egypt on the project of the financing strategy for sustainable development goals in Egypt in cooperation with the joint sustainable development goals fund in March 2021. This is within the framework of cooperation between the ministry and various development partners, including United Nations agents, adding that the project aims to achieve three main goals, namely calculating the costs needed to implement the national strategy for sustainable development, Egypt Vision 2030.Kamali explained that the voluntary report presented by Egypt at the United Nations High-level Forum during 2018 and 2021 focused on some of the challenges that impede the implementation of the sustainable development goals. Kamali added that one of the most important challenges is the issue of financing for development.




 Kamali explained that all countries, especially in light of the Corona pandemic and its economic dependencies, have been greatly affected, adding that financing has become one of the important issues that all countries should pay attention to while thinking about different methods to address the financing gaps.Kamali added that today's workshop discusses one of the important points, which is illegal financial flows, explaining that these flows threaten the ability of countries to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals by diverting financial resources from development.Kamali stressed that the Egyptian state is making a great effort in this regard to protect its economy and society from the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing, tax evasion, and other illegal flows, by raising awareness and efficiency of its specialists.Kamali added that policies to curb illegal flows require better data and a deeper understanding of these flows in terms of their types, sizes, effects, channels, sources, and destination.Kamali noted that this project is an independent technical statistical activity in line with the basic principles of the official statistics of the Egyptian state.He stressed that it is not possible to measure the multiple types of illicit financial flows in one indicator except through close cooperation within the national statistical system and with the administrative authorities concerned with providing data.Kamali added that the phenomenon of illegal financial flows is spreading in society, which leads to a scattering of data about it, pointing to the keenness of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development as the project coordinator on the presence of all national authorities concerned with different types of illegal financial flows, and the close cooperation between those parties with the United Nations agencies.
After his speech, Kamali thanked all the ministries, agencies, and various government agencies participating in that event for their effective participation in the workshop through presentations and interventions that resulted in a fruitful and constructive dialogue in the early stages of the project.