“302.2 billion pounds” social support for the citizens in 2023

Before the resignation of the new Gregorian year, Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, said that the state is working to activate the mechanisms of welfare and social protection programs.

Social protection support

The draft general budget for the year 2023/2022 also allocated support amounting to 302.2 billion pounds for social protection, compared to actual allocations of 251 billion pounds for the year 2020/2021, an increase of 17.6%.

Hala Al-Saeed explained that support for social security and the “Takaful and Karama” programs amounted to 22,000 million pounds, support for popular housing amounted to 266 million pounds, cash support and utility support in the social housing program amounted to 7,780 million pounds, and about 3.5 billion pounds as support for the natural gas delivery program to homes.

The trend of the poverty rate is declining

Al-Saeed added that the aforementioned activities and programs have resulted in the trend of the poverty rate to decrease for the first time in 2019/2020 to 29.7%, after it had recorded a continuous increase in previous years until it reached its highest level, “32.5%”, in 2017/2018.

  With the continued effectiveness of protection and social welfare programs, it is targeted that the rate will continue to decrease to 25% in the year of the plan 2023/22. Likewise, it is intended that the extreme poverty rate will decline in the year of the plan to 3.8%, continuing the decreasing trend in 2020/19 to 4.5%, after That it had reached its maximum in 2018/17 (6.2%).

protection and social welfare programs

Al-Said indicated the state's keenness to include three new basic components in the 2022/21 plan system, due to their close connection with the efforts made to address the issue of poverty, namely:

1- The Egyptian Family Development Program to control population growth and improve the characteristics of the family. The results of the study of income, spending and consumption indicated that the poverty rate increased with the large family size, meaning that there is a direct relationship between the poverty rate and the increase in the number of family members.

2- A decent life initiative for the development of Egyptian villages, This initiative aims to achieve comprehensive development of the Egyptian countryside, address development gaps, and achieve balanced regional development.

3- Women’s empowerment program to enhance their rights, given the positive repercussions of women’s economic and social empowerment on their ability to improve their standard of living  financially and socially.

Supporting citizens on the ground

It is noteworthy that the number of beneficiaries of cash support and social welfare services has reached about 15 million beneficiaries, with a total of about EGP 20 billion spent.