Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development inaugurates a workshop on harmonizing the national action program of the African Peer Review Mechanism

Dr. Ahmed Kamali, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development, inaugurated the activities of the workshop on harmonizing the national action program of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
During his speech, Dr. Ahmed Kamali said that the Egyptian state believes that there is no way to achieve sustainable development without the ability to measure performance and self-assess to determine the impact of public policy interventions to support policy formulation and prioritization to ensure continuity on the right track to achieve comprehensive and sustainable development.Kamali referred to Egypt's accession to the African Peer Review Mechanism in 2004.Kamali added that in 2017, steps began to prepare its self-assessment report within the framework of the mechanism according to its four main axes, which are democracy and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance, and social and economic development.Kamali explained that the self-assessment report presents a national action program aimed at dealing with the challenges facing the country in the various areas of governance, highlighting its operational aspects. The report takes into account the government's program, Egypt's Vision 2030, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Africa's Agenda 2063.The Deputy Minister of Planning explained that the self-assessment report - which was prepared by four specialized research centers - clarifies a set of different challenges facing efforts to promote comprehensive development in Egypt. The report also showed the Egyptian state's awareness of these challenges through the plans, programs, projects, and initiatives that it has adopted during the past years. However, there are some challenges related to financing and building human and institutional capacities that the state is still striving to address to achieve development in its various dimensions.


Dr. Ahmed Kamali affirmed the state’s intention to focus on six basic priorities in the National Action Program: promoting social justice, protecting human rights, promoting economic growth, promoting administrative reform and improving public services, combating and preventing corruption, empowering local administration, and protecting the environment.In the context of promoting social justice and protecting human rights, Dr. Ahmed Kamali said that the Egyptian state has adopted several initiatives to achieve comprehensive and equitable development to leave no one behind. Kamali referred to the "Decent Life" initiative as the largest project for the development of rural communities in the world, which aims to bridge the development gap between rural and urban by developing more than 4,500 villages in its dependencies, inhabited by nearly 57% of the Egyptian population, with investments of more than 800 billion pounds within 3 years.Kamali continued that last week, Egypt released reports on the settlement of sustainable development goals at the governorate level, which monitor development disparities at the local level and set targets for the indicators of the sustainable development goals for each governorate.This requires an equitable distribution of state resources, and therefore the "financing equation for local development investments" was developed according to economic and social criteria that take into account the development gaps between governorates.Kamali also indicated that in the context of promoting economic growth, Egypt launched this year the "National Structural Reform Program", which represents the second phase of the "Economic and Social Reform Program" that began in 2016.Kamali explained that the structural reforms aim to ensure the sustainability of economic growth to improve access, through interventions at the sectoral level to enhance competitiveness, pointing out that the program is based on three main sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, and information technology.Kamali also stressed that the Egyptian state has taken serious steps to improve the business environment through tax reforms, mechanization of government payments, the development and mechanization of the customs system, in addition to a set of legislation supporting the business environment, such as the law for the development of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises.He added that the Egyptian state believes in the necessity of optimal use of its assets and resources, pointing to the establishment of The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE) with the aim of restructuring and maximizing the benefit of those assets, as well as to create local, regional and international partnerships to finance strategic projects at the local and African levels.



Concerning the administrative reform file, the Deputy Minister of Planning said that it is one of the most important priorities of the Egyptian state because of its direct impact on the efficiency of public policy, the business environment, and the quality of public services.Kamali stressed that the Egyptian state's efforts focus on raising the efficiency of its institutions through the digital transformation of internal work systems, as well as relying on modern technology to govern public services and ensure their efficiency.Kamali indicated that the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development trains cadres from all government agencies on how to formulate development plans and projects and conduct development feasibility studies.Dr. Ahmed Kamali pointed out that preventing, combating, and preventing corruption is one of the main pillars for achieving sustainable development by enhancing accountability and transparency. The Egyptian state is moving forward in implementing the objectives of the national anti-corruption strategy, which ensures the activation of transparency, integrity, and accountability mechanisms in government units, the development of the legislative structure that supports the fight against corruption.On empowering local communities, Kamali stressed that the Egyptian government is making a great effort to support the role of localities in formulating development plans and following up on projects, as well as in gradually developing their resources to enhance the principle of decentralization. Kamali pointed to the issuance of a competitiveness index at the governorate level to monitor the successes and shortcomings in competitiveness capabilities so that interventions can be formulated for each governorate, improving competitiveness at the governorate level and creating positive competition.After his speech, Dr. Ahmed Kamali explained that the Egyptian state bears in mind the importance of environmental sustainability, which is reflected in the inclusion of environmental standards and considerations in the various planning stages to ensure the preservation of environmental balance and the reduction of carbon emissions.