Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has appointed Mostafa Madbouly, formerly the housing minister, as the country's new prime minister, two days after outgoing Prime Minister Sherif Ismail submitted his resignation and that of his cabinet. “President El-Sisi received Dr. Mostafa Madbouly today to commission him to form the new government,” said Bassam Radi, the president's official spokesperson, on his official Facebook page. Madbouly was minister of housing, urban utilities and urban communities in Ismail's cabinet. Ismail submitted his resignation two days after President El-Sisi was officially sworn in as the head of state for a second term until 2022. The move came in line with a political tradition that the cabinet should resign at the beginning of a new presidential term. Madbouly, 52, served as an interim prime minister from November 2017 to the end of January this year, while Ismail received medical treatment abroad. He was appointed minister of housing in February 2014 in the cabinet of then-prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab, and kept his position when Ismail was appointed as premier in September 2015. Madbouly is an architect and urban designer who served as the director of the UN's HABITAT Regional Office for Arab States from 2012 until 2014. He also served as chairman of Egypt's General Organisation of Urban Planning from 2009 until 2011. Since assuming the office of housing minister, Mabouly has overseen a number of projects to build affordable housing as well as develop new cities, including the new administrative capital east of Cairo and New Alamein on the Mediterranean coast. Madbouly has taught urban development and housing in at least two Egyptian universities, worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation, and worked on the strategic planning of Greater Cairo and several governorates across the country. Madbouly holds a PhD in urban planning from Cairo University and a postgraduate diploma in urban management from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies in Rotterdam.
