Egypt’s “Decent Life” Initiative was launched by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in January 2019. The initiative aims to improve the standard of life for the nation’s most vulnerable groups while targeting inhabitants of rural areas. The goals of the initiative include providing decent housing, water sanitation, medical and educational services to families in need. Additionally, the program will establish micro-projects for those most in need. The government has allocated approximately EGP 103 billion to fund the initiative.
Hani Aboulfotouh, economic advisor and banking expert, told WAYA pointed, “The Decent Life Initiative is one of the most important national projects in rural Egypt. It aims to alleviate the burdens of citizens in the poorest communities in the countryside and urban slums nationally, through Implementation of a set of service and development activities that would ensure a “decent life” for this group and improve their living conditions.”
Aboulfotouh added that the initiative aims to invest in the development of the Egyptian person and provide job opportunities for citizens to improve the standard of living for their families, which will result in the local community notifying a positive difference in their standard of living.
He specified to WAYA that the initiative targets families in need in rural communities, the elderly, the employed, single mothers, and children. The initiative covers 58 million citizens in 4,658 villages.
Aboul Fotouh stated that the initiative uses the maximum economic and social return, saying: “The neediest villages were divided into three phases: the first phase includes villages with poverty rates of 70% or more, these need urgent intervention. The second phase is villages with ratios Poverty ranges from 50% to 70% which require intervention but less urgently than the first group. As for the third stage, it tackles villages with poverty rates below 59% that have fewer challenges to overcome poverty.”
The decent life initiative targets 58 percent of Egypt’s 102-million population.
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