Financial aid reaches LE 18B: Social Solidarity Minster

CAIRO – 25 July 2017: The social financial aid volume reached LE 18 billion ($1.003 billion), funded by the Ministry of Finance, according to Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali, on the second day of the fourth National Youth Conference in Alexandria, Tuesday.

“The initial aid within our new strategy was delivered to families in March 2015” Wali said, adding that after releasing [Takaful and Karama] social program, other international associations started to participate in funding with about 15 percent.
Wali added in her speech, outlining the ministry’s strategy and plan for 2030, that [Takaful and Karama] was originally designed to be applied, within three years, to 5,000 needy-families annually.

However, the ministry has depended on its own poverty-map in tracing the most- needy families. “We are not only targeting eliminating financial poverty, but all kinds of poverty, including health and education.”

Wali discussed during her speech the differences between social justice and social protection explaining that“ social justice is giving everyone in society an equal opportunity.” She added that social protection is a number of temporary procedures, which hardly exist in any country.

Furthermore, [these temporary procedures] are considered a ‘dynamic process’, the government can move in and out of it when needed in society. ‘We apply them temporarily for specific conditions and reasons.”

Takaful and Karama program according to Wali has been applied in 27 governorates; however, it was more focused in Upper Egypt due to the higher population growth rate there.

“As the program proceeded, some indicators showed us that the strategy succeeded in targeting the right people and families who need the aid, including 249 small villages, whose residents cannot afford to have water inside their homes,” Wali said.

She added that Takaful and Karama is considered to be a conditioned contract between the government and families, “even the families that didn’t meet the financial aid conditions, its family members were given suitable jobs.”

Wali, also announced during the speech that the pensions has increased with 72 percent since 2014 till now to hit LE 155 millions.

Monday morning, President Sisi inaugurated the fourth National Youth Conference in Alexandria. Around 1,500 youth attended the conference, along with parliamentarians, heads of unions and universities, journalists, public figures, and representatives of the National Council for Women and the National Council for Human Rights.