The Ministry of Social Solidarity will review the poverty database to ensure the eligibility of cash subsidies, Minister Nevine El–Kabbaj told Daily News Egypt, adding that there are 30 million people suffering from poverty in Egypt, representing more than 7 million families.
“The ministry provides complaint channels so that the people can get the support they need,” she said, noting that all social programmes will be automated to easily follow up on the conditions of the people who benefit from them.
The ministry will boost its cooperation with civil society organisations in 2020 to enhance the country’s social safety net programmes in 2020, she assured.
“We’ve started to strengthen our social programmes in 2014 to help the neediest citizens in line with the subsidies’ reform, to achieve one of the main calls of both 25 January and 30 June revolutions which is ‘justice’ as it is directly related to social protection programmes,” she added.
Over the last period, Egypt focused on several social protection programmes including the conditioned cash subsidies’ programmes, she added, asserting that paying special focus on health and education is crucial for helping vulnerable citizens.
“Poverty is not about lacking cash, it has multiple dimensions. People need to have easy access to health and education services. We’ll also focus on women and youth economic empowerment programmes,” she noted.
The ministry also supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), she said, adding that next period will witness the continuation of social protection programmes.
There will be also a programme for helping the homeless in 2020, both inside and outside Cairo.
She called for different government bodies to take care of homeless elderly in winter, according to a ministry statement on 31 December 2019.
The Protecting Homeless Children programme held a meeting with the rapid intervention team and the general administration of social defence as well as the judicial police to discuss offering homeless elderly a decent life, the statement added.
The ministry urged citizens to report any findings of homeless children or elderly through the ministry’s hotline or through the programme’s official Facebook page.
