Poverty in Egypt Shows Signs of Decrease for First Time in 20 Years

After poverty indicators continued its 20-year upwards trend to 32.3% in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, the recently released CAPMAS report for 2019-2020 saw a decline to 29.7%

Farah Ibrahim VIEW ALL ARTICLES BY Farah Ibrahim

Date
01/09/2021 15:11

Egypt is experiencing a drop in poverty indicators for the first time in two decades, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

After poverty indicators continued their 20-year upwards trend to 32.3% in 2017-2018, the recently released report for the 2019-2020 fiscal year finally saw a decline to 29.7%.

A total of four million citizens were able to rise above the poverty line over the past few years, in part due to the success of the national ‘Haya Karima’ initiative to enrich rural communities. The declining poverty rate was measured by availability of food and drink, housing, health care, and education.

So far, the ‘Haya Karima’ initiative has allowed the government to spend EGP 700 billion on 4,658 villages and towns. These funds help by developing decent housing, health care, education, culture, infrastructure, clean environmental policies and job opportunities to ensure sustainable, long-term growth.