Egypt

Egypt's children and youth, representing more than one-third of the country´s population and its future, face several significant challenges, as shown by higher chi... Show More + ld poverty rates and unequal access to basic services. The objective of this report is three-fold: (i) to analyze the extent of inequality of opportunity among Egyptian children; (ii) to inform government policy on how success in life is influenced by factors predetermined at birth; and (iii) to identify policies and interventions that may contribute to improving equality of opportunity. The underlying premise is that ensuring equality of opportunity entails leveling the playing field in such a way that every child, regardless of the circumstances of his/her birth, will have an equal chance to succeed in life. This report analyzes the extent of provision of equal access to basic opportunities to all children (including healthcare, education, clean water and sanitation), and identifies the main circumstances that affect it and therefore determine human development outcomes. The analysis in this report builds on the concepts and ideas developed in the World Development Report (WDR). The findings are aimed at supporting debates and discussions, within and outside the Government of Egypt, on the need to ensure equality of opportunity, to contribute to the development of policies and institutions for children and youth, and to provide an improved sense of hope and social justice for the future and help build a more equitable society in the post-Mubarak era. The report is structured as follows: section one presents the background and motivation for the study; section two deals with early risk factors and associated health and education outcomes for children; and section three presents the estimates of inequality of opportunity among children. Details about the data sources and various analyses presented are included in the annexes. Show Less -

This report is being delivered pursuant to the agreement (Agreement) between the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Arab Republic of Egypt... Show More + (MCIT) and the World Bank (Bank) for the provision by the Bank of technical assistance (RTA) to MCIT and certain of its affiliates. One of those affiliates is the Information Technology Industry Development Authority (ITIDA). When it comes to designing and implementing ICT policies, the availability of proper indicators is key to efficiency and effectiveness. However, the indicators should go further, and should help policymakers also to measure how well the sector or projects are performing, provide an assessment over time on the status of a project, program, or policy, promote credibility and public confidence by reporting on the results of programs, provide in-depth information about public sector performance, help formulate and justify budget requests, and identify potentially promising programs or practices for duplication or scalability. Thus, this report is composed of the following sections: (i) a discussion of indicator types, in particular impact indicators and their constraints; (ii) an overview of the institutional setup of ICT data in Egypt; (iii) ICT data categories and methodologies used by major international indices and reports, including an analysis of Egypt's strong and weak results in the indices; (iv) a mapping and gap analysis between the indices' indicators and those currently collected by Egypt; (v) a set of recommendations for Egypt and (vi) implications of this work with respect to analyzing the socioeconomic impact of ICTs on investment, trade, growth and education in Egypt.
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The primary aim of load shifting or peak clipping is to lower the peak demand of the electricity system as a whole or for key parts of the network and thereby to re... Show More + duce the need for investment in generation and transmission capacity and to lower electricity supply costs. The pricing mechanisms and contractual frameworks examined in the project include conventional Time Of Use (TOU) tariffs that vary by season, day of the week or time of the day as well as special TOU contracts (contracts with large consumers to adjust their regular maintenance activities and/or major annual maintenance), interruptible contracts, and TOU power purchase contracts (purchase of electricity from customers who have excess self-generation). This Final Report is structured as follows; Section 2 provides an overview of the process of TOU tariff setting and rate design, Sections 3 and 4 summarise the experience of TOU tariffs and load management contracts in the MENA region (Section 3) and internationally (Section 4), Section 5 summarises the methodologies used in the development of TOU pricing mechanisms and load management contracts, Section 6 describes the marginal costs which are a key driver of the tariff designs, Section 7 presents the analysis of the demand response to TOU tariffs, Section 8 describes the design of the conventional TOU tariffs, Section 9 discusses special TOU contracts, Section 10 describes the design of interruptible contracts, Section 11 describes the design of TOU power purchase contracts, Section 13 describes the implementation plan for TOU pricing and load
management contracts, there are also annexes providing supporting information and analysis Show Less -

ENPO is an organization employing 48,000 staff and operating a network of more than 9,000 access points (of which 3,500 post offices, 6,500 agencies, of which 1,500... Show More + are currently active). A commercial entity with management autonomy, ENPO is primarily a provider of basic financial services. Other services are mail (regular and express), parcels and Government services. Postal financial services, with three main business lines (savings, payments and giro services) and 15 million savings accounts, generate around 50% to 60% of ENPO’s total revenue, and occupy an estimated 15% of ENPO’s staff. Although available accounting and financial information are limited, it seems that postal financial services are operated at a profit. For ENPO which is currently in a transition phase from an administration-type of organization, moving towards a corporate-type of organization, the strategic option will play as an accelerator of change (in case the Government decides for a drastic move towards bancarization) or as a consolidator of incremental reform (in case the Government opts for a progressive approach, potentially using alternative approach to grab the business opportunities of growth, but likely avoiding social tensions within the organization). In any case, moving forward the postal financial services agenda will call for (i) a review of the legal, regulatory and institutional set-up, (ii) building capacity in the network and assessing the return on investments, (iii) rapidly identifying the postal financial services as a business unit within the organization and assess its contribution to profit, as well as (iv) getting a better understanding of the cost structure so as to enable ENPO to be in a strong position during negotiations of service level agreement. Show Less -

The objective of this study, requested by the Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development, is to assist the government of Egypt in: formulating a coherent ... Show More + national affordable housing strategy which puts in place an effective institutional and regulatory framework that creates the necessary conditions for an efficiently functioning housing market, devises the incentive structure needed to promote increased private sector participation in affordable housing supply and the subsidy package to enable limited-income households to access affordable housing, and addresses distortions in factor markets; and designing the foundations and key elements of the national affordable housing program for Egypt, which aims to enable the delivery of 500,000 affordable housing units in the coming six years. This study critically analyzes the existing situation on housing supply in urban areas in Egypt. This includes examining existing formal and informal mechanisms for the supply/ delivery of urban housing in Egypt, institutions responsible for supply and regulation, the characteristics of the formal and informal housing stock (supply trends, prices, construction and factor market costs, etc), and the institutional and regulatory framework governing urban/ land use planning and development in Egypt. Show Less -

The main objective of the Egypt Public Land Management Strategy is to provide the Government of Egypt (GOE) with practical and politically feasible policy recommend... Show More + ations to reform existing public land management policies and practices in the aim of improving the business climate in Egypt. This study is presented in two volumes: Volume one with the main policy note, supported by Volume two with background notes on access to public land by investment sector. Volume one examines the overall system for public land management in Egypt and the challenges facing investors seeking to access public land for investment projects, and concludes with a roadmap for public land management reform in the aim of improving the investment climate, which has been prepared in consultation with key government stakeholders. Volume two provides background notes examining the sectoral issues and challenges facing investors in terms of access to public land and development controls for four investment sectors: (i) industrial/manufacturing (updating the Policy Note prepared in December 2004 for the Egypt ICA); (ii) tourism; (iii) agriculture and land reclamation; and (iv) real estate development (i.e. large mixed used development projects involving a land subdivision process). This assignment focuses on public land management in Egypt, one of several interrelated land sector issues that merit in-depth examination. This study is intended to prepare the groundwork for the GOE to launch the process for formulating a public land management policy document, which would include the key policy objectives and principles for effective management of public land assets in Egypt and which would serve as a foundation to guide the process of reforming the fragmented legal framework governing public land management in Egypt. The process for public land asset management policy and legal reform is discussed in detail in this Policy Note. Show Less -

The objective of this paper is to present a succinct and up-to-date review of the urban sector in Egypt, with a focus on issues for which there is new insight or em... Show More + erging government interest. The two main themes of the report are the challenges facing the urban sector and the policy implications at various levels of government. Some of the reports mains findings are: urbanization in Egypt takes on forms and processes which are not well understood and as a consequence urban policies are sometimes weak or counter productive; until now policies and actions in the urban sector have mainly consisted of State driven, supply-side interventions; due to the focus on development in the desert, the dynamics of urbanism in the Nile Valley and Delta, which together contain over 95 percent of the country's population, have largely been ignored; and finally it is rare that government of Egypt's urban development projects include a strategy of capturing the appreciation value of their investments ("unearned increment"), cross-subsidization or cost recovery. The note concludes with a set of recommendations of ways to improve the government's response to the urban challenge. Show Less -