Minister of Planning & Economic Development chairs JSC meeting to discuss financing strategy for SDGs in Egypt

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, in coordination with the Office of the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator in Cairo, held on Sunday a meeting of the (Joint Steering Committee) (JSC) between the Egyptian government and the United Nations for the first component of the Joint Fund for Sustainable Development Goals that is entitled "The Strategy for Financing the Sustainable Development Goals in Egypt".



The meeting was attended by Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development who is acting also as co-chair of the Steering Committee, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund and UN Special Envoy for Financing Agenda 2030, and Elena Panova, UN Resident Coordinator in Cairo and Co-Chair of the Committee.


The aforementioned meeting came in the context of the Egyptian state’s endeavor to achieve the goals of sustainable development 2030 and to attract multiple sources of funding to achieve Egypt’s development plans, especially Egypt’s Vision 2030.


Egypt’s ministers of Finance, International Cooperation, and Social Solidarity attended the meeting as well as the head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMS), and the head of the National Council for Women (NCW).


Moreover, the meeting witnessed the presence of 12 national bodies represented in 9 ministries, namely finance, international cooperation, social solidarity, education and technical education, health and population, housing, utilities, and urban communities, local development, transportation, and manpower, and 3 national institutions, namely the National Council for Women, and The Central Bank for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), in addition to five United Nations agencies, these agencies are the United Nations Development Program, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Women, UNCTAD, and UNICEF.


During the meeting, Dr. Hala El-Said referred to the challenge of financing the Sustainable Development Goals, explaining that the National Agenda for Sustainable Development is largely compatible with the goals of Africa's Agenda 2063, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
El-Said asserted Egypt’s commitment to accelerating the achievement of the sustainable development goals, therefore, the first phase of the national economic and social reform program was successfully implemented, and the second phase, the structural reforms phase, was designed and launched in 2021.


El-Said continued that the national structural reform program includes comprehensive short- and medium-term measures in five pillars: demographic characteristics, demographics, financial performance, logistics, and governance.

El-Said indicated that the program aims to change the structure of the economy by increasing the relative weight of three main sectors: industry, agriculture, communications, and information technology.

 The reforms also target three interconnected markets, namely the capital market, the trade market, and the labor market.


El-Said explained that the National Structural Reform Program (NSRP) includes five complementary and supportive pillars: Enhancing the business environment and the role of the private sector, Advancing the labor market and the efficiency of vocational, technical, and technological training, Improving financial inclusion, and Facilitating access to finance, in addition to Ensuring public governance and completing digitization, and Investing in education, health, and social protection sectors.


Dr. El-Said pointed out that it is important to secure adaptable, predictable, and flexible financing over the next decade for these multi-year investments, explaining that to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the financing required exceeds the current flows of development financing.

 “The specific sustainable development goals investments also require approaching new sources of financing,” She said.

El-Said highlighted the importance of analyzing the effects resulting from the Covid-19 crisis and other expected risks on financing flows and their volatility.
Dr. Hala El-Said stated that the issue of financing for development was mentioned in the voluntary national report (VNR) for the years 2018 and 2021, as one of the main challenges facing the country's progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda, as is the case in many emerging and developing countries.

The Minister pointed to the exacerbation of the challenge of financing the sustainable development goals due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires mobilizing financial resources to provide appropriate stimulus packages and protect vulnerable segments.

She explained that the pandemic also highlighted the importance of coordination at all levels as governments urgently need more funding to be able to the needs of the recovery process and accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals.

Dr. Hala El-Said indicated that at the national level, the Egyptian government proactively launched a comprehensive financial stimulus package worth EGP 100 billion (2% of GDP) to mitigate the impact of the crisis to expand the circle of social protection to support the severely affected sectors and vulnerable groups and to enhance economic activities.


 El-Said explained that this proactive strategy enabled the Egyptian economy to be one of the few economies that achieved growth during the crisis.

On public investments and sustainable development goals, the Minister of Planning and Economic Development said that the state has started a wide range of public investments aimed at advancing economic growth and social development.

El-Said referred to the national project for the development of the Egyptian countryside: "A Decent Life", which aims to transform more than 4,500 Egyptian villages into sustainable rural communities.

El-Said pointed out that the initiative was included among the best international practices for sustainable development goals on the United Nations platform, because of its positive impact in reducing poverty rates, as it is the largest development initiative in the world targeting more than 58 million citizens of Egypt, with $45 billion in funding over 3 years.


Concerning national efforts in financing the Sustainable Development Goals; El-Said referred to effective public-private partnerships as one of the most promising solutions to the challenges of financing for development.

El-Said explained that these partnerships can be a major alternative to financing development in the implementation of major strategic projects without placing more pressure on the government budget, and at the same time increasing the share of the private sector in the economy and in implementing impactful investment.

“Egypt’s investment law has been amended to address all obstacles that appeared past years,” She said.

El-Said also referred to the establishment of The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSEF) in 2018 as one of the main mechanisms for strengthening partnership with the private sector and local and international investors, to create investment opportunities in promising sectors with high growth, including industry, pharmaceuticals, food products, and agricultural, in addition to the services sector, logistics and multiple service sectors such as education, health, and water desalination.


Dr. Hala El-Said highlighted the state's plan to move to sustainable financing and green projects, noting that in 2020, Egypt issued the first green sovereign bonds in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where the size of the first green bond issuance amounted to $500 million; due to high demand, the issuance rose to $750 million for five years.

El-Said emphasized that Egypt attaches the utmost importance to green economic growth, as the Egyptian state, in cooperation with the ministries of planning and environment, prepared the first guide to environmental sustainability criteria in the sustainable development plan, intending to provide indicative criteria for integrating sustainable development criteria into development plans.

 The Egyptian state doubled the percentage of green public investments from 15% in 20-2021 to 30% in the 21-2022 plans, to become 50% by the end of 24-2025,” She added.

The Minister of Planning and Economic Development discussed the Human Development Report Egypt 2021, which was issued by the ministry in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, noting that the report covers an unprecedented period in Egypt’s history from 2011 to 2020, as it refers to the implemented social and economic reforms.

El-Said explained that the value of the Human Development Index for Egypt for the year 2020 amounted to 0.707, which puts the country in the high human development category, and ranks 116 out of 189 countries, becoming for the first time higher than the average of the Arab world.

Dr. Hala El-Said indicated that the Ministry, in partnership with the League of Arab States, started working on the first comprehensive national report on financing for development.

El-Said indicated that Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin is the lead author of the report and that the preparation of the report relied on a participatory approach that includes distinguished academics, government, and international development partners.


“Human Development Report Egypt 2021 addresses the full scope of financing for development, and identifies key policy interventions,” she added.

She also indicated that the government, in partnership with the United Nations, signed the joint program "Strategy for Financing the Sustainable Development Goals in Egypt" funded by the joint United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund in March 2021, which aims to develop an integrated national financing framework to estimate the cost of implementing the sustainable development goals on the national level.

This will help in identifying the national resources used to finance the sustainable development goals, the gaps and challenges in this context, and the innovative financial tools and mechanisms to fill these gaps.
El-Said added that within the framework of the joint program, four main areas are addressed: costing the SDGs by sector, mapping the main financing flows with the SDGs, budgeting from a gender perspective, and creating the SDG financing strategy with a focus on available opportunities to increase and improve the allocation of financial flows towards the sustainable development goals.

El-Said explained that the main sectors covered by this program are education, health, social protection, water and sanitation, and transportation, with special attention to gender equality in all sectors, noting that the selection of these sectors is based on two main factors: national priorities and an evidence-based approach.


After her speech, Dr. Hala El-Said stressed the importance of holding this meeting to support the general coordination of the joint program and to define the strategic vision and the way forward for the implementation of the joint program.

 “The Joint Steering Committee is expected to meet semi-annually throughout the joint program to provide general strategic direction and monitor progress achieved in the program,” She added.

A technical committee has also been formed at the government and United Nations level for the joint program to support the implementation of the program.

For her part, Minister of International Cooperation, Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, stressed that matching all available funds from all sources with the UN Sustainable Development Goals is the first and most important step, to identify the financing gap and develop a financing strategy for the sustainable development goals in Egypt, and to identify more effectively the needs future.


 Al-Mashat indicated that the facilitating committee should meet to prepare for the financing strategy for the sustainable development goals in Egypt every four months to closely follow up on the work of the technical committees and to find out the latest developments.

Al-Mashat reviewed the efforts of the Ministry of International Cooperation to match development funds within the ministry's ongoing portfolio of $25 billion with the United Nations goals for sustainable development, by creating a mechanism approved by the United Nations Development Program, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the World Bank.

The Minister of International Cooperation noted that Egypt has developed an ambitious vision for development that is consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030, and seeks to achieve it through national efforts to achieve economic and social development, green transformation, and improve the lives of citizens.
Al-Mashat indicated that with about a decade remaining until 2030, it is necessary to identify the achievements in this regard so far, to identify the financing gaps for the sustainable development goals, and to search for innovative and diversified sources of funding to implement these goals.

For her part, Minister of Social Solidarity, Mrs. Nevin Al-Kabbaj, stressed that poverty cannot be separated from human resource development or economic empowerment, as Egypt is dealing with poverty from the perspective of social investment and human capital development.

She added that economic empowerment of the poor is an integral part of developing the overall economy, and the poor did not become a burden and kept switching positions within the same circle of poverty without any hope of getting out of it.

Al-Kabbaj also made it clear that the partnership between the public and private sectors needs more effort in Egypt to prove a real success, as it is currently an unequal partnership between the two sectors to contribute to achieving economic achievement as one of the sustainable development goals.

The Minister of Social Solidarity confirmed that there are a lot of resources and expenses that are spent, whether from the private sector within the framework of social responsibility or from the civil sector from NGOs, but this is not documented and monitored in an organized manner, especially at the local level.

Therefore, the Ministry of Social Solidarity has developed a mechanized mechanism to inventory the resources and funding that are pumped from the private sector, with the importance of making a high-level statistical analysis of what is being invested socially to align it with the economic reform taking place in the country.

Al-Kabbaj concluded, "It is of paramount importance to have a robust and mechanized monitoring strategy to follow up the progress of sustainable development indicators at all levels, provided that they are classified in a way that reflects all geographical, age and quality gaps and the inclusion of people with disabilities."

In his speech, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin reviewed the main development in financing the sustainable development goals in Egypt, stressing that finding good sources of funding is the best way to achieve the sustainable development goals.

Mohieldin noted that the presidential initiative "Decent Life” is considered the largest example of the localization of the UN goals for sustainable development within Egypt.

Mohieldin stressed that it is necessary to take into account the achievement of gender equality during the implementation of the sustainable development goals in Egypt, noting that providing social protection for various groups along with a good health system is one of the important things that must be taken into account during the implementation and settlement of the UN goals for sustainable development in various countries of the world.

Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin pointed out that it is necessary to focus strongly on investing in the field of information systems that will provide important information regarding various sectors such as the health sector, education, and other sectors, which helps decision-makers to target the neediest groups easily because without Availability of information It will not be easy to achieve any progress in the sustainable development goals.

For her part, Mrs. Elena Panova - UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt stressed that the world urgently needs to focus on financing to save the sustainable development goals and put them on the right track, especially after the strong blow of the Corona pandemic.

 She also noted that Egypt can be a global model in developing a clear and credible financing strategy for sustainable development goals by aligning all financing and policy flows with economic, social, and environmental priorities.

Elena Panova pointed out that the presidential development initiative "Decent Life" is fully compatible with the UN goals for sustainable development, stressing that the United Nations strongly supports the implementation of the goals of the initiative and will support the Egyptian government to implement it in various parts of Egypt.

Panova praised the steps taken by the Egyptian government to maintain the sustainability of the economy during the epidemic, noting that Egypt's experience is inspiring concerning confronting the epidemic and the economic reforms that have taken place since 2016.

Panova stressed that finding sources of financing for the sustainable development goals needs focus from everyone and that there is a large gap in finding sources of financing for the sustainable development goals in Africa.