Despite the persistence of regional disparities, Egypt's second Country Report declares that it is on the way to achieving its Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Pierre Loza reports The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight far-reaching development targets, agreed upon by heads of states from around the world during the 2000 Millennium summit held at the UN. Among the MDG signatories, Egypt has committed itself to achieving these goals by 2015, according to the initiative's timetable. The ambitious plan utilises international benchmark methods to quantify progress made on eight developmental goals. The second report produced by the UN and Egypt's Ministry of Planning, it aims to monitor Egypt's progress towards these goals, which include halving extreme poverty and hunger, empowering women and ensuring environmental sustainability. The second Egyptian Country Report on MDGs was prepared by the Public Administrative Research Centre at Cairo University, headed by Salwa Gomaa. In her speech at the first public release of the report last week, Gomaa highlighted some of the most pressing problems detected through her research. "The report sees a disparity in achieving these goals according to each governorate," she said. The highest poverty incidence remains entrenched in rural Upper Egypt. The report found that "patterns of poverty between 1995/1996 and 1999/2000 showed different stories. The incidence of poverty increased in Upper Egypt over this period, from 29.3 per cent to 34.2 per cent in rural areas." Gomaa did stress, however, that on the national level, poverty incidence has decreased to around 16 per cent of the population. According to Gomaa, a 1.5 per-cent increase in each individual's share of GDP growth, would drastically reduce these poverty levels. The report, which states that "Egypt remains on track to achieve the expected results on the great majority of MDGs indicators," cites population growth as a major challenge facing Egyptian development efforts. With a population growth rate of two per cent and life expectancy of 70.4 years, Egypt's population is expected to reach 83 million by 2015. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the percentage of inhabitable and arable land has not grown fast enough to keep up with the pace of population growth. A central impetus of development which was not included in the report is economic growth. According to World Bank estimates, the real GDP growth rate must reach seven per cent in order to bring unemployment down to more manageable levels. On the goal of providing universal coverage in primary education for boys and girls, Upper Egypt is again lagging behind. Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Damietta and Ismailia have already achieved this goal, while Sohag comes at the bottom of the list. Providing 77 per cent of its boys and 75 per cent of its girls with coverage, Sohag has quite a way to go to achieve this millennium goal. Although this year marks the vanishing of gender disparity in Egyptian secondary education enrollment, the report predicts that this will probably not be the case for all levels of education by 2015. The quality of education on the other hand, is another major challenge that is yet to be addressed. Substantial improvements were realised in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR), which declined from 174 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1993 to 75 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2002, reflecting a 50 per cent drop from the 1992 findings. Nonetheless, maternal deaths were still primarily caused by preventable factors, such as substandard care and the unavailability of blood transfusions. Cultural practices like early marriage can also increase the risk of maternal deaths. "It is the obligation of religious institutions to raise awareness about the risks of early marriage," Gomaa said. With regards to environmental sustainability, the report adopted a more disturbing tone. "A recent World Bank study estimates the cost of environmental degradation in Egypt at LE10-19 billion per year or 3.2 to 6.4 per cent of GDP," Gomaa warned. Urban air pollution is one of the most significant burdens on Egypt's environment. This problem is further intensified by the overcrowded nature of most urban areas in Egypt. Carbon dioxide emissions in Egypt are considered low in comparison to industrialised nations, standing at 1.7 tonnes per capita in 2000/2001. Diarrhoeal diseases, due to incomplete access to potable water and sanitation present another major challenge to Egyptian environmental sustainability. The UN resident coordinator, Antonio Vigilante, was also present at the report's release. Vigilante underlined the importance of MDGs as a vehicle for positive change, not only for Egypt, but for the world as a whole. "If the goals are reached, 500 million people will be out of poverty and there will be 250 million people that do not suffer hunger anymore. This is almost four times the population of Egypt," he said. Vigilante also announced the completion of the Millennium Project report, which was submitted last January to the UN secretary- general. The document produced by 265 development experts from around the world, provides a practical plan to achieving MDGs. Among the report's recommendations, was for the UN to identify a group of nations which display a strong potential for achieving MDGs quickly. If selected, a nation would be granted a "fast track MDG status", which means a massive increase in development assistance. A central criteria for the MDG fast track candidates, which include Egypt, is strong governance and potential. The Millennium Project report also affirmed the responsibility of wealthy industrial nations to bring down trade barriers and make good on their previous promise to provide 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Income for international development assistance. "The cost of supporting the MDG programme is about $135 billion per year to start with, then climbing to $195 billion per year by 2015. If you compare that to the $300 billion that industrial nations spend on agricultural subsidies, it is not a tremendous amount of money that cannot be mobilised," Vigilante said. The presence of Egypt's minister of planning, Osman Mohamed Osman indicates the government's commitment to international cooperation on the development front. Osman asserted that Egypt's government was evolving into a more dynamic entity. "Our partnership in this report reflects an improved level of performance on the part of the Egyptian government," he said. Osman also announced plans of decentralisation as part of the government's modernising vision. "As a Ministry of Planning we will have a lesser role in implementation on the municipality level. We will simply provide the funding and the local authorities will have greater freedom to define and implement their development goals."
