Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development: The dimension of localizing sustainable development goals in the governorates is important to achieve balanced regional development

Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development, said that achieving sustainable development goals and achieving balanced regional development; requires taking into account the dimension of settling the sustainable development goals in the governorates.This came during a ceremony to launch 27 reports to localize sustainable development goals at the governorate level, which was held by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development in cooperation with the Ministry of Local Development and the UN Population Fund UNFPA, in the presence of Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, and Major General Mahmoud Shaarawy, Minister of Local Development as well as Ms. Elena Panova, Resident Representative of the UN in Egypt, and Ms. Frederica Meyer, Representative of the UN Population Fund in Egypt.
The ceremony also witnessed the presence of the participation of all governors, several members of the House of Representatives, and members of the Senate, and relevant stakeholders.Kamali referred to the millennium goals launched in the year 2000 and was targeted to be achieved by 2015, explaining that Egypt was able to achieve the millennium goals at the national level, but there was a strong discrepancy between the governorates about poverty, health, and education.Kamali explained that by looking at the 17 SDGs launched in 2015, one will find that the three dimensions of social, economic, and environmental intersect with all goals.Kamali noted that Egypt was one of the first countries that launch its national vision for sustainable development "Egypt Vision 2030", stressing the adoption of the participatory approach in setting and updating visibility.



The Deputy Minister of Planning continued that Egypt’s Vision 2030 is based on the concepts of sustainable inclusive growth and balanced regional development, referring to the “Mainstreaming, Accelerating and Supporting Policies” project, MAPS launched in 2018 in partnership with the UN, which includes four important components that are to identify the linkages between the sustainable development goals, and its accelerators.He explained that at the beginning of the program, the focus was on 5 governorates: Qalyubia, Minya, Assiut, Sohag, and Qena.Dr. Ahmed Kamali said that the reports to localize the sustainable development goals achieve goal 17 of SDGs, which is partnerships to achieve the goals, noting that the government, the private sector, and the international community participated in preparing these reports.On the objectives of the reports on the settlement of sustainable development goals in the governorates; Kamali explained that it aims to present the values of indicators for sustainable development goals at the governorate level, to make estimates for the goals of sustainable development goals at the governorate level, to follow up on what each governorate has achieved within the framework of implementing the goals.Kamali added that only 32 indicators were used due to the availability of 47.5% of the indicators of sustainable development at the national level in 2019, and the lack of some indicators at the governorate level, and the inability to measure some indicators at the governorate level.
Kamali noted that the 27 reports present some recommendations related to the goals that contain large gaps.