Welcome to the United Nations
Watch video of panel where the VNR was presented
- Egypt is among 10 countries worldwide that is submitting its third VNR this year. While the first was submitted in 2016, following the launch of the national sustainable development strategy “Egypt vision 2030”, the second VNR presented in 2018 marked the successful implementation of the economic stabilization and reform program, whereas the third VNR would share with the international community Egypt’s strides to lay the foundations for more resilient economy and community capable of weathering adverse unexpected shocks such as COVID-19 pandemic.
- Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Egypt was on an upbeat trajectory to achieve its development targets. Unfortunately, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impacts stormed the whole world leading to an unprecedented global recession. Despite the adverse shock on the Egyptian economy, still the successful implementation of the economic stabilization and reform program which enhanced the resilience of the economy diluted the effect of the pandemic leaving the Egyptian economy among the very few and the only country in the MENA region to register positive growth.
- The Government of Egypt (GoE) is convinced that despite the woes of the pandemic, it can be rendered as a catalyst to expedite the implementation of reforms. Consequently, GoE has launched the second phase of the economic reform program in 2021 aiming at streamlining the structure of the Egyptian economy and raising its competitiveness by targeting sectoral bottlenecks.
- The GoE together with all the stakeholders have worked together to deal with the challenges identified in Egypt’s second VNR (2018). In terms of FfD, 2020 marked the issuing of the first green bond in Egypt and the in the MENA region. The issuing which was extremely successful not only adds to the diversification of finance tools at the disposal of the GoE but also would push the agenda of “greenifying” public projects. Additionally, the GoE in collaboration with the League of Arab States and the UN will launch this year the first ever comprehensive national report on FfD to give an objective taxonomy of FfD in Egypt. As for the issue of the population growth, the GoE has embarked on the national project for family development where ministries, civil society organizations and international organizations collaborate not only to curb population growth but equally important to improve the characteristics of human capital. The GoE has also exerted significant efforts to improve the stance of governance in Egypt which was identified as another major challenge. In this regard, the GoE adopted the second version of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) aiming at promoting transparency and integrity in the government units and enhancing prompt justice. Additionally, to enhance the public financial management, the Electronic Government Payment System and the Electronic Government procurement and Contracting System were launched. These systems help in simplifying and enhancing the transparency of the contracting procedures as well as the revenue collection system and ameliorating the competition base.
- To accelerate the achievement of the SDGs and to reinforce the concept of “Leaving no One Behind”, Egypt was successful in cutting poverty which has been rising for almost 20 years with the help of better targeted social protection programs. In the same vein and in its quest to prioritize the localization of sustainable development, the GoE in collaboration with UNFPA have produced localization reports for all Egyptian governorates which depict the current values and the targets of SDGs indicators in all governorates in order to target local developmental gaps. Another important pioneering initiative is the construction of the first competitiveness governorate-based index in collaboration with the civil society in Egypt and UN-ESCWA. To culminate these efforts, the GoE has launched the Descent Life initiative to improve the lives of millions of poor in rural areas across Egypt by providing quality government services to the dwellers of the poorest 1500 villages in phase one.
- Egypt is always committed to an inclusive and participatory approach. The identification of the issues as well as the content of the third VNR has involved a series of consultations with government entities, private sector and civil society representatives as well as development partners.
