Egyptian Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El Said delivered a speech at the session in which she stressed the importance of eliminating all forms of poverty.
Minister Said added that international agendas including the 2030 sustainable agenda, the 2063 African agenda and Egypt 2030 agenda, ominously agree on the importance of eliminating poverty.
In the past, the world used to measure poverty level through the GDP but now it is measured through the indicators of education and health as well as basic services offered to citizens, she added.
On Covid-19, Minister Said pointed out that the pandemic caused economic and health crises including serious deterioration of trade movement reaching between 40 and 70 percent.
The minister also said that the pandemic, worldwide, affected education and caused a rise in the number of the jobless people as 255 million jobs were lost and 250 million people are expected to come under poverty line in 2022.
Minister Said also said the right to development is an important part of human rights which came within the framework of the national strategy of human rights launched by president Sisi in 2016 within Egypt 2030 vision.
Elena Panova, Egypt’s UN Resident Coordinator, hailed efforts exerted by the Egyptian government while introducing structural reforms and dealing with Covid-19.
She said the United Nations works with the Egyptian government on reforms which she said would create more job opportunities, improve the performance of the private sector and increase industrialisation and productivity.
She said the international and African agendas focus on efforts to emanate poverty which affected poor people and made them unable to receive health services including Covid-19 medicine, pointing out that 120 million people around the world came under abject poverty as a result of the virus.
For his part, head of the Arab Voluntary Union Hassan Buhazza hailed Egyptian presidential initiative “Decent Life” which was launched by President Sisi to improve services in rural areas in Egypt.
He added that 1.300 billion people around the world suffer from poverty and 100 million others were affected by the pathogen.
Discussion about this post