The State had established the Ministry of Social Affairs to provide its services for citizens through a set of programmes and projects. In 2005, a new Ministry of Social Solidarity was established, taking the competences of supply and social affairs ministries.

 

 Egypt, now, is on the threshold of a new social decade that reflects new intellectual orientations which cope with age developments:

 

a new decade that represents an integrated programme that aims at enhancing the efficient participation between the state and different sectors through raising economic growth rate, providing more job opportunities and presenting direct subsidy to the under-privileged and low-income brackets, along with emphasizing the social dimension in the development plan. The state's main objective is to ensure security for today's and tomorrow's generations through raising incomes and pensions, realizing social and psychological stability for the Egyptian family, enhancing citizens' skills and urging them to positively participate in their society's main issues.

 

 

The state adopted a strategic plan related to subsidizing commodities and ser-vices and restructuring the present subsidy system to ensure its accessibility to its beneficiaries. The national project was implemented for establishing databases about subsidy eligible beneficiaries which started both in Al-Sharqia and Assiut governorates.

 

LE 8.5 billion were allocated for bread subsidy in 2006/07 with an increase of LE one billion in 2005/06. Subsidy of supply commodities reached about LE 9.4 billion in 2005/06.

 

Subsidy of electricity reached LE 3.2 billion in 2005/06, this amount is mainly meant to subsidize low-consumption rates, benefiting low-income brackets, subsidy of petroleum products possessed LE 41.8 billion in 2005/06.

 

 

The first law on social security was issued in 1950, then, law No. 30 of 1977 followed, amended by law No. 88 of 1966. The Ministry of social solidarity was established in 1995.

The State is committed to supporting low-income brackets. The Ministry of Social Solidarity exerts ceaseless efforts to extend insurance coverage to all citizens and maximize the number of insurance beneficiaries. Social insurance system regulates many services, salient of which are: Monthly cash aid, one-package aid, financial assistance to retired employees, Relief aid and children pension. In this respect, the following achievements have materialized:

 

- Increasing the number of social security pension beneficiaries from about 210,000 families in 1981/82 to about one million families in 2006/07, i.e. five fold of the corresponding number in the base year at a cost of LE 1.1 billion. Increasing the monthly values of the payable money for the families benefiting from aids to reach LE 5000 in case of disaster. It is planned that number of social insurance beneficiaries will reach 2.5 million families in 2011.

 

-  The family benefiting from the social security pension is offered a a monthly sum of LE 20, which rose to LE 40 for each child in primary education. In case of plurality of children, each is granted a scholarship with a maximum amount of LE 100. The number of beneficiaries reached about 2 million children.

 

-   Providing soft loans through the Social Fund for Development (small and mi-cro-scale enterprises and social and human development projects) estimated to be LE 3.9 billion which provides 835,000 job opportunities during the fifth five-year plan.

 

A pattern was prepared to determine the poorest and most needy families, and the families which deserve the social security and the governmental subsidy through the National Center for Social and Criminal Researches in order to make a social cadastral. The pattern was applied in some governorates as a first phase where it started in Al-Sharqia then Assiut in order to prepare databases for the most favored families all over Egypt.

 

In the framework of cooperation and harmonization between the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Ministry of Housing and Utilities, a number of 539 housing units were provided by the Ministry of Housing and Utilities in new cities (6th of October, New Borg Al-Arab, Al-Sadat, El-Sherouq, El-Sheikh Zayed, Badr, New El-Salhya, New Damietta and 15th of May). These units will be consecutively delivered to the Ministry of Social Solidarity after rising its efficiency.

 

Within the framework of the state's care towards the social dimension and the support of the under-privileged and low-income brackets, the social work system achieved a tangible success in providing security and care for the Egyptian family.

 

-   Doubling the number of insured people from 10.7 million in 1981/82 to about 19.8 million in 2006/07.

 

-   Increasing the value of disbursed pensions and compensations 40 times from LE 0.75 billion in 1981/82 to LE 30 billion in 2006/07. Increasing the monthly value of the payable money for the benefiting families to reach LE 100 pensions.

 

-   The number of pension disbursement outlets increased to reach 14888 in 2006/07, i.e. four times the corresponding number in 1981/82 (3646 outlets), and new services were introduced to alleviate the suffering of the elderly people such as the pension home delivery service and increasing the number of Automatic Teller Machines (ATM).

 

-   Increasing the number of social security offices and areas from 349 in 1981/82 to 511 in 2006/07 with growth rate of 46%.

 

-  Providing the comprehensive insurance for the passengers of the collective means of transportation (the percentage of insured people who use roads reached 100%).

Social Rehabilitation

 

The State, with all its organizations, seek to pay due attention to all categories, and stemming from the importance of paying special interests to people of special needs and engaging them within the society, a social rehabilitation programme for different kinds of handicapped is implemented. Many service units serve this cate-gory such as a number of 89 handicapped children incubations for 3197 beneficiaries, a number of 51 mental education institutions with beneficiaries reach 3003, a number of 5 deaf and bad hearing organizations for 356 beneficiaries, 14 substitution artificial limps and prosthetics for 17841 beneficiaries, a number of 5 protected special factories for 276 beneficiaries, a number of 21 comprehensive rehabilitation centers for 798 beneficiaries, 78 physiotherapy centers for about 50756 beneficiaries, 7 linguistic centers for about 416 beneficiaries, 7 multi-handicapped organization for about 470 beneficiaries and 184 social rehabilitation offices for 31312 beneficiaries.

 

This project started in 1964. It is considered one of the social project that aims at developing the economic resources of low-income categories and young graduates. The number of productive families in 2007 reached about 4.4 million that obtain training services, rotating loans and marketing services in all governorates.     The number of productive families' Preparation and Training Centres reached about 3250, number of trainers 4200 and number of trainees 50,000.  The number of exhibitions spreading all over Egypt and providing marketing services reached 104, 36 of which are permanent exhibition, 44 are affiliated to the social development organizations and 24 marketing outlets in the associations. The number of beneficiaries from the marketing service reached about 3051 families, 678 associations and 151 preparation centres. The Productive Families Project participated in many exhibitions during 2006 and 2007.

 

 

It aims to provide care and vocational training for school dropouts between 13 to 18 years old students.  Number of these centres reached 85.

 

 

It is an activity concerned with the harmed family whose income was negatively affected such as those families living in Halayeb, Shalateen and Abu-Ramad at the Red Sea. LE 4 million were allocated monthly benefiting 4830 families. Moreover, monthly aids is being provided for those who got harmed by Naga'a Hamadi Archs in Qena and Sohag with an amount of LE 1 million for a number of 835 families.

 

It is one of the activities that pay due concern to the people affected by desertification and drought. Annual in-kind aids are provided with total cost of LE 3.2 million for 10 governorates, benefiting 133,008.

 

 

It provides aids to the soldier's and his parent's families to develop and rise their income. About LE 25 million was given to 56296 families from those who were recruited whether a husband, a father or  son. Also about LE one million was provided to 3135 families of martyrs and injured civilians as a result of military operations or explosion of mines.

 

The MOS pays due attention to the social, educational and cultural care of chil-dren and develops their talents. Also, it pays due care to the children who are prone to deviation as a result of family incoherence.  The number of  nurseries reached 10848 for 571872 beneficiaries , 500 children clubs for 40961 children,707 children libraries for 91543 children, 63 children parks for 101371 children , 120 children hosting families for 996 beneficiaries, 131 lodging nurseries for 2367 children , 286 lodging institutions for 7490 children, 3 children villages for 296 children , 115 elderly homes for 4000 beneficiaries, 170 elderly clubs for 33000,52 physiotherapy units, 30 elderly service offices and the number of family guidance and consulting offices reached 180.

 

 

It is concerned with the category of delinquents who are prone to deviation. It also pays due care to prisoners and minor girls. The number of social defense clubs rose from 22 to 165.

 

 

It aims to develop the clubs' members socially, culturally and physically , and protect the environment, through a number of social, cultural, economic and voca-tional programmes which it presents. The number of clubs reached 491 for 1,011,337 young males and females.

 

 

It was necessary for this vast and important sector to gain the best interest. In 2005/06, the number of young graduates assigned to the one – year public services reached about 44483, the number of social and cultural clubs reached 474 benefiting 129,800, and the number of hostels reached 223 benefiting 17,000.

 

There are many projects which aim to raise the woman's social and cultural level such as the rural woman projects and the rural outreach training centres. Women clubs reached 729, serving more than 81,000 beneficiaries.

 

The new law for NGOs and its executive regulation was issued. It adopts the philosophy which is based on facilitating the procedures of establishing associations and alleviating the administrative restrictions on their activities.

 

The number of NGOs in Egypt hit 23,200, the state subsidizes these associations with more than LE 100 million annually and with the salaries of 15,000 employees delegated to work in these associations .NGOS are also exempted from some of the custom fees and taxes.

 

Elderly care is considered one of the most fundamental human issues that receive the state's due attention, among other policies and developmental programmes. In 2005/06 the number of elderly homes reached 104, benefiting 2400, while the number of elderly clubs reached 159, benefiting 48200 and the number of elderly services offices reached 27, in addition to 52 physiotherapy units.

 

 Nasser Social Bank

 

The State always pays due attention to realizing social solidarity among citizens through establishing Nasser bank in 1971. It started with a capital estimated at LE 1.5 million and reached now LE 680, relying on its self resources. The bank has 89 branches, about 4690 Alms – raising committees and social solidarity capital estimated at LE 594 million.  The bank provided many services and activities to help low – income brackets in 2006, salient of which are:

 

- Spending LE 3.9 million as financial aids for emergency cases, benefiting 11477.

 

-  Total soft loans without revenue for low – income brackets reached LE 38.7 mil-lion benefiting 19,00 cases.

 

-  Providing the requirements of a simple productive project at a total cost of LE 9.6 million for about 72.35 projects till 30/6/2006.

 

-  Financing newly married couples in a limit of LE 10,000 at a cost of LE 143 million for about 13415 beneficiaries.

 

-  Financing youth (by a part of the housing unit's price) totaling LE 718 million for 63210 beneficiaries.

 

-   The bank provided LE 92.8 million for small projects owners, benefiting 4972.

 

-  The bank provided LE 433 million, benefiting 4972 for the acquisition of means of transportation.

 

-   Family Insurance System Fund, where the alimonies and salaries are performed from its yield. The total verdicts executed till the end of March 2007 reached 41.000 at a total cost of LE 65 million, collected subscriptions amounted to LE 212.7 million, LE 26.3 million were disbursed to alimony verdicts and assess deposit estimated to LE 100 million from the available resources till 30/3/2007.

 

-   Increasing the maximum amount of alimony verdicts and wages from LE 300 to LE 50

 

-   Making a detailed plan to develop the General Authority of Nasser Bank in co-operation with

the Ministry of State for Administrative Development.

 

 

Stemming from the state's conviction with the inevitability of expending the scope of public services offered to citizens and promoting the standard of living, the investments oriented to all education, health and housing services witnessed a constant increase through out time. During the period (1982/83-1991/92), the social services sector gained about LE 45 billion and continued its increase during the next period (1992/93-2006/07) when the amount reached about LE 318.4 billion, i.e. seven-fold-increase than the investments of the first phase.

 

As a percentage of the total investments, investments implemented in the field of social and public services increased from about 24% during the period (1982/83-1991/92) to 29.3% in the next period till 2006/07, thus reflecting the continuous rise in the relative importance of such services. Figure No. (2/11) shows the average investments in social services sectors to the total implemented investments.

 

Special importance was intensively given to the social dimension with its wide concept during the past ten years and in the framework of the fourth and fifth plans (1997/98-2006/07) where the implemented investments reached LE 174.3 billion, i.e.  59% of the total investments.

These investments covered education, health, culture, youth and sports, woman, societies, tunnels, railway transportation and metro underground services. This is clarified in the following table:

 

 

The period (1981/82-2006/07) not only witnessed a tangible development on the social level, but it also realized corresponding achievements on the social level, along with an increasing interest in human development and concentrating on the social dimensions of the economic development process. Thus, asserting an improvement in development with a percentage of 22.8% from 0.589 in 1994 to 0.689 in 2002 and to about 0.723% in 2006.

 

This positive development made Egypt move from the countries of low human development level to that of the medium level according to the classification used in the International Human Development Report. Moreover, a noticeable progress in the main components used in the human development guidebook and in some subsidiary indicators has been realized. This is shown in the following table:

 

Description	1990	2005	The target at the beginning of 2015
Ratio of citizens gaining less than one US dollar daily (%)	8.2	0,94	4.1
Ratio of population under poverty line (%)	24.3	14.5	12.1
The ratio of admission in the primary education (%)	85.5	95	100
Ratio of literates in age group (14-25) (%)	73	87	100
Ratio of girls to boys in the primary education (%)	81.3	90.9	100
Ratio of boys to girls in the secondary education (%)	77	104.3	100
Ratio of girls to boys in high education (Natural science) (%)	51	66	100
Ratio of girls to boys in high education (social science) (%)	65	99	100
Ratio of literate women to men (15-24 years) (%)	84.7	86.4	100
Children mortality rate under 5 years	56	34.6	18.7
Infant mortality rate per thousand	37.8	17	12.6
Ratio of vaccinated children against measles (%)	81.5	96.9	100
Ratio of vaccinated children against Poliomyelitis %	87.9	94.9	100
Mother mortality rate per 100,000 infants born alive	174	52.9	43.5
Ratio of urban population who have permanent source of potable water (%)	96.9	100	98.5
Ratio of rural population who have permanent source of potable water (%)	61.1	95	80.6