375 villages housing 4.5M citizens are being developed within ‘Decent Life’ initiative

CAIRO - 8 February 2021: Dr. Gamil Helmy, Assistant to Planning Minister for Follow-up of the Sustainable Development Plan, stated Sunday that “Decent Life” initiative – worth LE20 billion - is being currently implemented in 375 villages, housing 4.5 million citizens.

The official pointed out that the first phase of the initiative began in FY2018/2019 with the poorest 143 villages and will end in FY2021/2022. The second phase started in FY2019/2020 and includes 232 villages.

Helmy explained that the indicators of poverty rates adopted by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) were used in coming up with the plan, so as the poorest Egyptian villages were identified according to the concept of multi-dimensional poverty.

"The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development launched an electronic system to follow up on the efforts made in these villages," Helmy said.

The state also relies on the surveys carried out by (CAPMAS), field monitoring of the Decent Life Foundation and field surveys carried out by the Ministry of Local Development and the governorates.

This is in an attempt to link statistical indicators with participatory planning, and to identify citizens' opinions, suggestions and priorities.