Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat met Sunday with a World Bank Group delegation headed by Marina Wes, Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti at the Bank, to discuss developments in the joint social housing financing programme. The meeting also included Robert Bogoda, Director of Operations in the Middle East and North Africa; Mai Abdel Hamid, CEO Social Housing and Mortgage Support Fund; and the World Bank and the Ministry of International Cooperation working teams. The meeting aimed to review the results of the World Bank Group mission, during the period from 28 November to 9 December, regarding the social housing financing programme, which began in 2015 at a value of $1bn, in light of the state's efforts to provide adequate housing for low and middle-income people. Al-Mashat stressed the importance of the comprehensive social housing project funded by the World Bank, in light of the efforts made by the Egyptian state during the era of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, to provide decent housing for limited and middle-income people and to enhance the ability of lower-income groups to benefit from the programs. Financing from banking institutions and companies in order to obtain adequate housing and eliminate slums. In addition to providing 25,000 social housing units in accordance with green building standards, as the first initiative of its kind in Egypt, the social housing financing programme has created job opportunities through the construction and development sector and provided 3 million direct and indirect job opportunities over the course of the programme. In addition to enhancing financial inclusion, with the participation of 22 banks from the financial sector and 8 real estate finance companies. For their part, the World Bank Group mission praised the results achieved by Egypt in the social housing file, which is one of the largest programs of its kind in the world, which enhances efforts to provide adequate housing for citizens with lower incomes. They affirmed that this model prompted many member countries of the World Bank Group to start inquiring about these efforts and the possibility of repeating them with the World Bank in order to implement the same model in different countries, especially in Africa. The mission also confirmed the World Bank Group's keenness to continue cooperation and move forward from In order to expand this program in support of the Egyptian government's vision aimed at expanding the financing of housing units for citizens Mai Abdel Hamid said that the social housing finance programme has made great progress since its implementation in 2015 in order to meet the increasing demand for housing units, and until last June housing units were provided to more than 470,000 low-income families in all governorates of Egypt, and contribute to enhancing the social inclusion of youth, as 75% of the youth beneficiaries are under the age of 45, of whom 51% are under 30 years, in addition to giving priority to women, who accounted for 23% of the beneficiaries. Women occupy 42% of the leadership positions in the Fund, in order to promote the principle of gender equality.
