A look at Egypt's new local development minister's mission

CAIRO – 15 January 2018: Head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics Abu Bakr al-Gendy was chosen as the minister of local development, specialized in carrying out developmental programs in governorates. Egypt Today presents a profile about his career and the different files waiting for him at the ministry.

Who is the new minister?

After graduating from the Military Academy in 1968, Gendy got his Master's degree in Military Science in 1979, along with a Master's in Strategic Resources in 1995 from the National Defense University in Washington D.C.

Gendy was the head of the Egyptian Armed Forces Training Authority and the president of the third army; he then went on to take the position of head of the U.S. Relations Department at the Ministry of Defense. He was also assistant minister of defense.
He received many awards, including the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, the Military Duty, the United States Merit, the United Nations Peacekeeping, and the Order of the Republic.

Meanwhile, he assumed the rank of Chief of Staff in 2005; then, he was appointed as the head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), until he was chosen to be the minister of local development.

During his office in CAPMAS, the center released a survey regarding income and expenditure since October to identify the poverty index in the country and the percentage of the poor in Egypt. The agency has decided to declare its results every three months due to the economic changes Egypt face.

He declared during an interview with Egypt Today that the agency will do a demographic health survey to monitor the percentage of mortality among children and mothers. This survey is scheduled to be done every five months – the most recent of which was carried out in 2015.

Issues waiting for the new minister

Setting mechanism to combat corruption across Egypt tops these files as monitoring and inspection should be activated within the ministry to undertake tours in governorates in order to detect irregularities.

Meanwhile, due to the increasing number of illegal buildings, the ministry in the coming period will work on demolishing buildings that have been illegally built.

The other files waiting for Gendy are restoring state-owned territories and establishing hygiene holding companies to carry out hygiene and recycling projects as this had been declared by the former Minister Hisham el-Sherif before leaving the office.

At the same time, the ministry will work on developing Bir al-Abed in Northern Sinai as Sherif signed during his office a cooperative protocol with Misr El-Kheir Foundation and the Ministry of Supply to develop it.

Furthermore, developing Upper Egypt will be one of the priorities of the ministry, where they will continue implementing the halted projects in Upper Egypt starting February, according to what Sherif had announced.

It is worth mentioning that before Sherif left the ministry, the Ministry of Local Development was following legislative reformation with other ministries.