Egypt's pres. ratifies $500M social housing loan offered by World Bank

CAIRO – 17 November 2020: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi ratified an agreement with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for Egypt to receive a $500-million loan to fund social housing projects.

The agreement was signed on July 5, 2020, and approved by the House of Representatives.

Egypt and the World Bank's IBRD have partnered in the Inclusive Housing Finance Program since 2015. The program –which ended in 2020 - was also worth $500 million. The number of beneficiaries amounted to 287,600 households as 57 percent of the fully-furnished units recipients are married couples with little children. Those citizens belong to the low-income segment, and the majority of them used to dwell slums.

The new program targets to raise the number of beneficiaries by 31 percent until 2024, as indicated on the World Bank's website. The total number of beneficiaries is estimated to reach more than 3.6 million individuals or almost 830,000 households with an average household size of 4.3 individuals.