Egypt
This chapter examines zone-based policies in Egypt. It provides an analysis of zones’ competitiveness and sustainability as well as of their strategic objectives, their distinct regulatory frameworks, and current policies to attract investment, boost export and foster linkages with the local economy. The chapter also presents evidence on zones’ contribution to foreign investment, export, and job creation. It offers some policy options to better align the development objectives of zones in Egypt with the government sustainable development priorities.
Young people have demonstrated resilience to shocks and led positive change in their communities across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Young people (aged under 30) constitute more than half (55%) of the population across MENA, compared with 36% of the population across OECD countries. While challenges vary significantly across the region, youth unemployment rates are among the highest in the world, young people tend to express low trust in public institutions, and nearly four in ten live in fragile and conflicted-affected areas. The COVID-19 crisis has underscored the need to place the needs of young people at the centre of an inclusive and resilient recovery. To support this process, this report analyses current governance arrangements and practices across 10 MENA governments in three areas: 1) uniting all government stakeholders to implement a shared, integrated youth policy and deliver services to young people; 2) building administrative and institutional capacities to mainstream the perspectives of young people in policy making; and 3) encouraging the participation and representation of young people and youth stakeholders in public and political life.
This report examines how current legal provisions in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are impacting women’s ability to fully participate in economic life, both as employees and entrepreneurs. It is based on a comparative analysis of the various rights set out in constitutions, personal status laws, labour laws, in addition to tax and business laws. The report recognises the considerable progress made – in particular in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings – following the adoption of constitutional and institutional reforms to strengthen women’s status.
Yet ensuring sufficient opportunities for women remains a challenge in the six countries. The report suggests that this may be due to different factors such as: the existence of certain laws that are gender discriminatory, contradictions between various legal frameworks, lack of enforcement mechanisms, and barriers for women in accessing justice. Through targeted policies, countries can tackle these challenges, and help unleash women’s potential to boost growth, competitiveness and inclusive social development.
This chapter examines a part of the state-owned enterprise sector that has been relatively unexplored to date, whether in Egypt or in the wider Middle East and North Africa region, namely, public-private joint ventures. Such ventures are a major feature of state-owned sectors across the region and are indeed the most common corporate form in Egypt’s oil and gas sector. They deserve greater attention for their importance within the overall role of the state in the economy, but also for the special challenges they pose in terms of corporate governance. The analysis presented here constitutes an initial effort to close the information gap on corporate governance of joint ventures with public participation, specifically focusing on transparency and disclosure practices. To assess performance in this area, this paper first explores the governance environment in which these firms operate, with particular attention to disclosure. It then analyses disclosure of key governance information on corporate websites for a sample of 12 holding companies and 100 publicprivate joint ventures.
In recent years, considerable analytical work has been done on issues of economic reform in countries undertaking adjustment. Less attention has been devoted to the social costs of adjustment and the transitional problems during the period from reform to growth. The Egyptian economic adjustment since 1991 is a good case in point, as Egypt is facing difficult transitional problems, of both social and financial nature.
The first part of this paper discusses Egypt's newly established social fund (1991), notably the adequacy of its core programmes and targeting mechanism for providing an appropriate "social safety net" in the medium term. The second part of the paper deals with Egypt's financial intermediation system, which is unable to convert large amounts of liquid savings into long-term real capital, hence increasing the time-lag between reform and growth.
It is concluded that an efficient system of financial intermediation and a comprehensive social safety net are needed to ...
Egypt places high priority on the development of agro-food and electronics and electrical equipment (E&E). The COVID-19 pandemic, changing technologies and consumer preferences, and the potential of the African market are creating new challenges while at the same time opening up a new range of possibilities for Egyptian firms and entrepreneurs. This chapter of the PTPR of Egypt examines the opportunities and challenges for agro-food and E&E in Egypt in light of global trends. Based on peer review from Italy and Malaysia respectively, it provides a snapshot of each industry’s structural features, reviews key elements of Egypt’s current policy approach and identifies key elements for policy reforms.
Egypt needs to diversify exports further in order to emerge from its isolation and to draw the maximum advantage from the growth potential offered by trade globalisation. To what extent does the bilateral free trade agreement with the European Union encourage the transition from a rentier economy to one of export-led growth?
This paper uses a dynamic, calculable, general equilibrium model to assess different scenarios for the Egyptian economy to the year 2010. The authors reach the conclusion that the preferential trade agreement with Europe should facilitate the transition if the increase in trade results in higher Egyptian productivity through technology transfer and pressure from competition. Under these conditions, the agreement would seem to have a similar impact to that which could be expected from unilateral ...
This chapter provides an overview of the responsible business conduct (RBC) landscape in Egypt, outlining steps taken by the government to promote and enable responsible business practices. It provides concrete examples of actions the government could take to facilitate implementation of RBC standards and foster trade and investment in key economic sectors. It proposes policy recommendations to further enhance the climate for RBC, with a view to improving economic and sustainability outcomes and supporting Egypt’s development objectives.
A new orientation of e-government in Egypt has been growing, driven by demands from citizens and civil society. This is renewing the context for e-government development and implementation in Egypt.
This chapter presents the current developments regarding the institutional structure of Egypt and contextualises the history of e-government. It sets out the main drivers for e-government in Egypt, including a new key driver that has emerged through citizens’ demands. Finally, it outlines main components of both past and current approaches and strategies for egovernment in Egypt, identifying the overall direction of the current initiatives.
This chapter outlines how to best implement the Egyptian Manual for Legislative Drafting in an effective and efficient manner, based on the experiences of OECD countries. The chapter underlines that it is essential for Egypt to build their ongoing legislative reform efforts on a comprehensive and whole of a government regulatory policy strategy in order to complement the significant progress achieved with the preparation of the Legislative Drafting Manual. The chapter concludes with specific recommendations to help maximise the potential of the Egyptian Manual for Legislative Drafting as a tool for obtaining better outcomes from legislation.
This chapter focuses on legislative drafting in Egypt. It first maps out the process of legislative drafting in Egypt while demonstrating how legislative drafting processes and procedures work. It then identifies the existing challenges in the current legislative and regulatory framework; and demonstrates how the Egyptian Legislative Drafting Manual could help overcome these challenges; and thus contribute to better legislation and regulation.
Egypt is lagging behind other countries in the Mediterranean region in reforming its economy. This book explains why.
The authors contend that the Egyptian political system, based to a large extent on discrete patronage and dominated by powerful interest groups was inherently resistant to reform. In addition, the country's strategic position in Middle Eastern politics provided the environment for aid flows which mitigated the need for change by creating an illusion of economic wellbeing. Egypt has thus been protected from the pressure of the international market system. Yet, argues this study, such pressure is the only effective stimulus to fundamental reform.
This chapter provides an overview of Egypt’s tax system, including recent reforms, and an assessment of the country’s investment incentives regime. It provides an overview of existing incentives, their implications for the tax administration and proposes options to ensure that tax incentives achieve the government’s policy goals in a cost-effective manner. The chapter also looks at tax governance and transparency issues.
This chapter locates Egypt’s models for directing the higher education system and its models for the internal organisation of different higher education institutions in the context of international developments in public sector reform. It considers the need for new balances between government direction, institutional discretion, and market-based mechanisms in Egypt’s evolving policy framework for higher education. Directions are suggested for reform of the frameworks for system steering and institutional governance.
This chapter focuses on the mainstream channels for young people’s participation in tertiary education and training – the transition from secondary school to higher education. It outlines different models of structuring the transition, describes Egypt’s current transition processes, identifies their strengths and weaknesses, canvasses the main issues for policy, and suggests a direction for reform.
In recent years, the Government of Egypt has driven major reforms for modernising the country. However, Egypt’s higher education system has remained largely unchanged and without fundamental reform of the sector the country will face difficulties in improving its competitiveness.
This independent review of Egypt’s higher education system focuses on areas in need of attention by policy makers and stakeholders, including system steering and institutional governance; student access to higher education; educational quality and effectiveness; research, development and innovation; and finance. It contains an analysis of the system and valuable recommendations which, taken together, represent a major programme of structural and cultural reform of Egyptian higher education over the decade to 2020.
This chapter develops a framework for the comparative analysis of the Research, development and innovation system in Egypt and relevant comparator countries. The framework is applied to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the RDI system in Egypt along with the major challenges the country faces.
This chapter provides an overview of the regulations on investors’ entry and operation in Egypt. It argues that, despite remarkable liberalisation reforms, structural transformation in Egypt has occurred at a slow pace. The creation of a more competition-friendly environment would allow for a better allocation of resources towards higher-productivity firms and would enable new entrants and incumbents to bring in new ideas and innovate. The chapter then examines the restrictions on cross-border investment and finds that restrictions on the entry and operation of foreign-controlled firms, while not particularly extensive in Egypt, place an additional toll on the development of a thriving business sector. Not only might they discourage foreign investment inflows in the first place, they may also hold back potential economy-wide productivity gains associated with FDI.
This chapter considers the feasibility and possible phasing-in of particular reform initiatives as a means of testing their workability and building support for a more integrated, longer-term reform agenda.