Mohamed Maait, Egypt's Minister of Finance, has confirmed that the country continues to make significant strides across key indicators related to transparency, disclosure, and community participation in the general budget. These achievements, as reported by the International Budget Partnership for 2023, reflect a decade of dedicated efforts to enhance transparency mechanisms and budget disclosure. In a statement released by the Ministry of Finance today, Maait highlighted Egypt's progress in three critical areas: 1. Financial Transparency Index: Egypt has climbed six spots, demonstrating improved financial transparency. 2. Public Participation Index: The country has advanced 16 places, emphasizing active citizen engagement. 3. Accountability and Oversight Index: Egypt gained 10 points, reinforcing responsible budget management. These positive developments not only promote transparency but also contribute to attracting investment. Egypt now surpasses the global average in financial transparency and data availability, ranking eighth worldwide—following France and Australia—in terms of public participation. The 2023 Open Budget Survey specifically recognized Egypt's successful implementation of the National Participatory Model Initiative. Ahmed Kouchouck, Deputy Minister of Finance for Financial Policies and Institutional Development, reaffirmed the ministry's commitment to ongoing progress. Their initiatives include simplifying budget information for citizens, fostering continuous community dialogue, and involving citizens in decision-making processes. Additionally, the ministry aims to enhance data inclusiveness, publish international reports throughout the budget cycle, and deepen participatory budgeting methods. Egypt's dedication to transparency, disclosure, and community engagement is a crucial part of its broader public finance reform efforts. Sara Eid, Head of the Transparency and Community Participation Unit and Official Spokesperson for Budget Affairs, highlighted Egypt's notable progress in evaluation, while other countries have seen declines despite global and regional challenges. She emphasized that participatory budgeting is an institutional tool to ensure effective public participation, raising awareness and empowering youth and women. Eid highlighted the unit's efforts to enrich reports by providing more information on the medium-term budgetary framework, explaining debt reduction targets, detailing funding sources, and presenting global and regional economic developments in a simplified manner. The unit also conducts community dialogues on financial reports, focusing on involving youth and women in development opportunities and gender-responsive budgeting, as well as addressing climate change and digital transformation. She explained that the Public Participation Index increased to 35 points out of 100, compared to 19 points in 2021, surpassing the global average of 15 points. This improvement is attributed to the unit's use of community participation mechanisms to empower and involve the public, especially women and the most vulnerable groups, in all stages of budget preparation, implementation, monitoring, and oversight. The unit has also expanded coordination with local authorities and governorate offices to hold public hearings. Eid noted that the Transparency and Community Participation Unit is currently preparing to launch the national participatory budgeting model in several governorates. Additionally, a training component for youth has been developed to enhance the concept of active citizenship, raise awareness of development goals related to youth, simplify financial concepts, and involve them in economic and social life. The unit also encourages their participation in awareness activities about the budget preparation cycle, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Curriculum Development Center. The unit has updated its website to meet the needs of youth and includes all reports issued by the unit. A new interactive page on social media has been launched to facilitate communication with the community, especially university students. The unit also conducts surveys to gauge public reactions to the citizen's budget through events organized in collaboration with civil society organizations concerned with transparency. Eid mentioned that the unit's efforts have contributed to a significant increase in the sub-index for budget oversight, achieving 54/100 points in 2023 compared to 44/100 points in 2021. This progress involves coordination with the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Central Auditing Organization. The unit highlights the parliament's efforts in budget oversight and citizen involvement by publishing discussions from parliamentary committees responsible for budget monitoring and expenditure priorities. Field visits are organized to various regions for monitoring and oversight. She added that a cooperation protocol has been established between the Egyptian government, the United Nations, and all success partners, including civil society organizations, in sustainable development from 2023 to 2027. This initiative is a core part of the social accountability program conducted by the Transparency Unit within the pillars of transparency and governance. These efforts have been supported by strategic partnerships and successful alliances with more than 50 governmental and non-governmental institutions, international and Egyptian universities, civil society organizations, and international organizations. These collaborations have helped expand the scope of influence, unify efforts, and leverage the strengths of success partners and collective resources to drive innovation, find sustainable solutions, and achieve common goals, foremost among them empowering youth to become influential leaders and play an active role in decision-making processes.
