Outlook on ‘A Year of Effective Development Cooperation’ report

CAIRO – 30 June 2017: Egypt's Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation released on Friday its annual report titled "A Year of Effective Development Cooperation" that tracks development efforts in 2016.

The report presents the annual results of development in Egypt, including the size of investments injected in the country, amounting to $7 billion in 2016. This sum was used to support 79 development projects in 11 sectors.

The 16-page report was initialized with a part of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi's speech before the UN General Assembly in 2016.

"Egypt continues to implement an economic reform plan that takes into account the social interests and launches huge national projects," said Sisi.

He added that these projects included expansion of road networks, establishment of new renewable power plants, and development of infrastructure and manufacturing capacities.

The Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr, pointed out that Egypt has recently undergone deep changes on the political, economic and social levels.

She added that the government has undertaken unprecedented steps to mobilize available resources and efforts with the aim of achieving the country's national development goals.

Nasr noted that this report presents the efforts of all concerned parties in the last year to enhance international development cooperation in Egypt. She expressed her appreciation for the hard work of Egypt's development partners, as well as the working team of the Ministry that contributed to improving the lives of citizens and raising economic growth rate.

The report revealed that the Ministry has injected $7 billion of development funds to implement 79 development projects in 11 different sectors during 2016.

It also operated a $29 billion portfolio of official development assistance (ODA) in the last year. These projects covered major economic, social and environmental fields in accordance with the country's vision of 2030. They included infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, financial governance, entrepreneurship, small, medium and micro enterprises, agricultural production, food security, social justice, education and tourism.

According to the report, these efforts contributed to providing more than 354,000 new job opportunities, supplying natural gas to 2.4 million houses and clean drinking water to 480 disadvantaged villages, and establishment of 1,200 schools.

The report consists of four chapters: Development Assistance Management for Sustainable Development, Development Cooperation Activities in 2016, National Development Goals, and Comprehensive Growth and Fair Development.

The Investment Ministry aimed at enhancing the overall performance of the development cooperation through developing the organizational structure of the Ministry on the basis of geographical distribution of development cooperation.

The Ministry formed sectoral working groups to coordinate the projects funded by ODA. These groups include electricity, housing, infrastructure, micro, small and medium enterprises, education, scientific research, health, social solidarity, local development, transport, civil aviation, trade and industry, water resources and irrigation, agriculture, petroleum, environment and culture.

The Ministry reviewed in the report its achievements in terms of international cooperation, most notably the signing of 57 agreements with international and regional development institutions, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank, the European Union, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the United Nations agencies, the OPEC Fund for International Development.

The report also briefed Nasr's participations in several high-level conferences and meetings hosted and held inside and outside Egypt.