The Decent Life initiative to improve living standards in rural areas is the best proof that the Egyptian leadership is keen to safeguard human rights, organisers of the World Youth Forum (WYF) said this week.
“Human rights are not just freedom of expression, but also rights to decent housing, education and internet access,” Nourhan Moussa, legal consultant and one of the organisers of this year’s WYF, told The Egyptian Gazette.
Moussa added that Egypt is working on the human rights file as it has launched a national strategy for human rights, which is a milestone in Egypt’s history.
In October last year, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi also lifted the state of emergency for the first time in years.
In April 2017, Egypt imposed a state of emergency as bombings targeted churches. Since then, the country has been extending the state of emergency at three-month intervals.
”Getting people out of poverty and providing them with better living standards – is not that a human right?,” Moussa said.
The Presidential Leadership Programme graduate added that the WYF focused this year on Egypt’s Decent Life initiative because this major project benefits 60 million Egyptians who live in poor living conditions in rural and deprived areas.
An exhibition for the initiative was also held on the sidelines of the forum and some beneficiaries of the initiative took part in performances at the World Youth Theatre.
Yostina Tharwat, head of the Targeted Groups Sector at the Decent Life Foundation, said the Decent Life project took part in the forum in three events.
The first was the Decent Life workshop to discuss development projects in Egypt and how to expand them in other countries.
The Decent Life Museum showed the world’s young people the four aspects of the Decent Life, which are education, health, decent housing, infrastructure, and economic empowerment in line with environment conservation.
The third was a session on efforts to combat poverty, confirming that Decent Life is an institution and a national project to reduce poverty nationwide through economic empowerment.
The activities of the fourth edition of the World Youth Forum was launched under the patronage and presence of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Sharm El-Sheikh, South Sinai, from January 10 to 13, 2022.
This year, the forum’s management announced the list of official sponsors that included a large number of top Egyptian institutions, international organisations, investment companies, banks, ministries and universities.
The sponsors are responsible for covering the entire budget of all the forum’s events and activities in order to ensure that the forum’s management does not prejudice the general budget of the Egyptian state as all the forum’s expenses come from outside the general budget.
The forum was launched in three editions in the past years 2017, 2018, and 2019.
It aims to bring together the world’s youth in order to promote dialogue and discuss development issues and to send a message of peace and prosperity from Egypt to the world.
The United Nations Commission for Social Development has adopted the three previous editions of the WYF in Egypt as an international platform for discussing youth issues.
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