Is Egypt on the right track towards meetings its international Millennium Development Goals, asks Mona El-Fiqi Half-way between the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 as a framework for spurring development by over 190 countries in 10 regions, and target date 2015, Egypt has taken significant steps towards meeting its international commitments. However, some areas remain to be addressed. Eight issues are at the core of the MDGs. They include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empower women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other major diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development. "The MDGs are in fact more than mere technical targets: they are at the core of universally accepted human rights and values and human dignity," says James W Rawley, the UN resident coordinator in Egypt. Elaborating, he said the MDGs aim at ensuring that all human beings will be able to secure an acceptable degree of development and enjoyment of their basic human rights. Rawley added that the global efforts to achieve the MDGs are generating "concrete and encouraging results". He believes that halving the number of people living on less than one dollar in the developing world by 2015 remains within reach. It is estimated that poverty rates in Egypt have fallen from 52 per cent in 1981 to 42 per cent in 1990 and to 26 per cent in 2005. Egypt assessed its own efforts towards meeting the MDG targets. The results of that assessment were published in a report launched this week by the Ministry of Economic Development, titled Egypt: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and charting the development of Egypt's efforts half way to the target. The launch of the report comes ahead of a high- level meeting on the MDGs scheduled to be held at the UN headquarters in New York on 25 September 2008, when overall progress will be reviewed. The Egyptian self-assessment concluded that Egypt has made some real progress on some of the MDGs while others still pose a challenge. However, it said that with more effort, those challenges can still be overcome by the target date of 2015. According to the report, Egypt achieved substantial improvements in the areas of poverty alleviation, education enrollment, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating major diseases and developing a global partnership for development. However, more has yet to be done regarding ensuring environmental sustainability, promoting gender equality and empowering women. Osman Mohamed Osman, minister of economic development, speaking during the launch of the report this week, said Egypt is on the right track towards achieving the MDGs. He pointed out that Egypt's national plan is keen to go beyond these goals. Osman asserted that the government is giving priority to improve not only the quantity, but also the quality of social services provided. In the education sector, for example, Osman said that the government aims not only to establish 3,000 schools as the presidential programme promised, but also to upgrade the quality of the educational service offered to the students. According to Osman, the Egyptian government has accommodated the eight MDGs within its national policies to ensure that it meets its commitments. For example the government adopted the goal of reducing the poverty rate to 15 per cent by 2011-2012 in its 2007-2012 five-year plan. It has also implemented a package of actions and programmes to empower the poor. The actions include short-term deliverables, two complementary programmes of geographic targeting and support for the most vulnerable families, as well as an integrated package of social policy reforms. Osman added that 60 per cent of public expenditure is directed towards social services. Egypt will still need to work further to reduce the poverty rate down to 10 per cent by 2015. Hoda Rashad, director of the American University in Cairo (AUC) Research Centre and report author, added that besides cutting poverty, Egypt also witnessed progress in the reduction of malnutrition amongst children under five years old from 9.9 per cent in 2000 to 6.6 per cent in 2005. In addition, the unemployment rate also was reduced from 9.5 per cent in 2005 to nine per cent in 2007. As for enrollment in education, Rashad explained that Egypt witnessed substantial improvements for both males and females during the period 2000-2006. However, school drop-out rates remain relatively high, and clustered in certain areas and among vulnerable groups. The report says literacy rates for the young improved, and Egypt can hope to approach the 100 per cent literacy target for the 15 to 24-year-old age group. On another positive note, the report says Egypt's efforts to reduce child mortality are paying off. Rashad said good progress is documented and the country is on track towards achieving the target regarding child mortality. "Moreover, Egypt's commitment to improve maternal health and its many national programmes have already translated into a significant and impressive reduction in maternal mortality ratios and in proportion of births attended by skilled personnel," the report explains. Rashad added that Egypt has succeeded in controlling malaria while the number of victims to tuberculosis and schistosomiasis, or bilharzia, is falling, and that it is making helping Egypt significantly in its fight towards achieving the sixth goal, which is fighting HIV/AIDS. However, Rashad warned that Egypt should adopt steps to avoid the danger of experiencing a turning point from low to concentrated HIV epidemic. Egypt achieved progress in one more area, which is in making a global commitment for improved aid, fairer trade and debt relief. In the past few years Egypt has been witnessing a rising trend in its Official Development Assistance (ODA) disbursement from a majority of rich countries and international organisations which have been allocated to fulfil the development needs of different sectors. Fayza Abul-Naga, minister of international cooperation, also present at the launch of the report, explained that the total annual aid provided to Egypt in 2007 is currently between LE3.5 billion and LE4 billion, of which 50 per cent are soft loans while the remainder are grants. Moreover, Egypt's external debt was stable during the last six years with a decline in the ratio of debt interests to exports of goods and services, so according to Abul-Naga, Egypt is registered at international financial institutions as well as the UN as a country of safe debts. However, the goal of promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women is one of the challenges currently facing Egypt. "Female economic and political participation is not showing any signs of progress and may even be regressing," Rashad said. The report recommended that these two interrelated goals need to be further prioritised and to receive a more articulated strategy, supported by a detailed action plan and steps towards implementation. Ensuring environmental sustainability remains another key challenge despite the government's policies and increasing investments in this field. Other key challenges according to the report include the need to curb population growth and its negative impact on the environment as well as the increased demand on natural resources. Abul-Naga blamed local and international obstacles for Egypt's failure to make progress on some of the MDGs. For example, the rise in international prices of food and fuel negatively affected the Egyptian economy, she said. Abul-Naga also cited industrialised countries' failure to meet their commitment to provide 0.07 per cent of their total GDP to assist developing countries towards their achievement of the MDGs. Among the countries that failed to meet this commitment was the US.
