 With 17 percent of its population living below the national poverty line, Egypt’s government is determined to improve conditions for its poorest citizens. Planning effective strategies can be a daunting task, however, when a country’s poverty indicators are hotly contested. And without consensus on the figures, Egypt’s officials found their progress was limited.
To get the numbers right—and to establish a .rm foundation for helping poor people—the Egyptian Government’s Ministry of Planning teamed up with the World Bank to conduct the first-ever comprehensive poverty assessment for Egypt, completed in July 2002.
The study, which partnered World Bank experts with prominent Egyptian academics, used innovative techniques to calculate poverty patterns from surveys of household incomes, expenditures, and consumption. It went beyond former analyses by accounting for problems caused by regional variations in prices and differences in the size and age composition of households.
The most notable discovery was that geographical and regional disparities were more important than traditional determinants of poverty, such as the divide between urban and rural populations. The report revealed that during the five years in question—1996 to 2000—poverty had actually decreased in Egypt’s four main cities of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and Port Said, as well as in the Nile Delta region. However, it was on the rise in the Upper Egypt region. As a result, the government has been focusing more on improving regional disparities, especially in terms of making development investments in Upper Egypt.
Another important finding was the direct link between education and poverty—more than 46 percent of poor people are illiterate and 40 percent have a basic education or less. Such evidence is a firm foundation, that will sharpen the government’s ability to focus on some of the non-income dimensions of poverty, such as literacy, mortality and healthcare.
Updated: November 2003
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