Discussed: How Egyptian Parliament supported youths by laws

CAIRO – 12 January 2022: The Egyptian state, after the June 30 revolution, witnessed a great movement in political life, and young people became a major and effective participant in parliament and executive positions in the state.

This was translated into legislations approved by the House of Representatives after that, with Parliament completing a number of important legislations to support and advance youths, including those aimed at providing job opportunities for young people, reducing unemployment and increasing opportunities for empowerment, and other laws that encourage innovation and creativity.

In the below lines, et reviews some of these prominent laws:

Laws of sponsoring scientific research and innovation

The amendment of the Fund for the Care of Innovators and Innovators, No. 1 of 2019, came as a continuation of the process of caring for the gifted and talented youths, which aims to support, fund and sponsor researchers and innovators, finance science, technology and innovation projects, and find new mechanisms to finance them by encouraging individuals and the private and civil sectors to do so.

Law No. 204 of 2020, regarding the State Prize for the Young Creator, aims to discover young talents in the fields of culture, literature, arts and innovation. This award is granted annually with a minimum financial value of two hundred thousand pounds for anyone who presents an innovative intellectual or material product in these fields, and is under the age of eighteen year.

Also, the Science, Technology and Innovation Incentives Law, promulgated by Law No. 23 of 2018, is one of the important legislations that support the scientific research and innovation system, in light of the state’s interest, led by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in scientific research and development and support for innovators.

Youth empowerment laws and job opportunities

That list also included a law regulating and encouraging the work of mobile food units and facilitating the procedures for issuing licenses, in the context of ensuring the integration of the informal economy with the formal in the state and motivating and supporting young people.

The law included a series of facilities and incentives, and stipulated that the license term would be three years, subject to renewal, for a fee not exceeding five thousand pounds annually, to be paid in cash or by check accepted for payment or by one of the electronic payment methods.

The law defined mobile food carts as every cart, vehicle or a platform, whatever its shape, is movable and is intended for preparing, preparing or selling food, provided that the relevant local administration units and the relevant bodies of the Urban Communities Authority and the bodies that are authorized to do so are the competent administrative authority. The law exempts the licensed units from tax on profits for a period of 3 years from the date of the license.

Law No. 201 of 2020 regulating microfinance activity, according to the law, is intended to finance medium, small and micro enterprises: any financing for economic, productive, service or commercial purposes for medium, small and micro enterprises set forth in the Law for the Development of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises.

Draft law regulating youth organizations

On January 14, 2020, the House of Representatives finally approved a draft law submitted by the government to amend some provisions of the Youth Organizations Law promulgated by Law No. 218 of 2017. The draft law subjects all youth centers to a new legal system, ensuring the regularity of their work and the services they provide within the framework of the plan.

The draft law aims to eliminate what stands in the way of preventing the state from fulfilling its obligations towards youth and young people in society, as the practical reality of implementing the provisions of the articles of the Youth Organizations Law promulgated by Law No. 218 of 2017 resulted in 4273 youth centers at the level of the Republic to a guiding regulation issued by the Egyptian Olympic Committee.

The law stipulated the establishment of so-called "youth development centers", and defined them as "youth bodies established by a decision of the Prime Minister, aiming to provide a range of services to its members in order to discover and develop their talents and invest their spare time."

It stipulated that by a decision of the Prime Minister it is permissible to establish youth development centers or transform some of the bodies subject to the provisions of this law into youth development centers.