Egypt is at a critical phase of its development, striving to balance economic growth with sustainable practices. The country has set ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030, including increasing the contribution of private investments to 65% of total investments, attracting around US$60 billion worth of foreign direct investment (FDI), and boosting exports to reach US$145 billion per year.
These targets align with Egypt's Vision 2030, a comprehensive plan that encompasses economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Several axes in the newly updated version in the three dimensions of the strategy, whether at the economic, social, or environmental levels, have already been identified, and include interest in the knowledge economy and encouraging innovation, industrial deepening, and value chains.
SDS Egypt Vision 2030 Final
Empowering the Private Sector
Egypt's private sector is key to the country's prosperity amidst fast-changing global and domestic economic conditions. As an engine of innovation and productivity growth, private enterprises are central to job creation, a factor of increasing importance given that Egypt’s working-age population has been growing by an average of 1.2 million annually over the past 5 years. To reach these ambitious targets, Egypt has taken several initial steps towards creating a more conducive environment for private sector growth.
These steps include:
- Unifying the exchange rate and addressing the severe distortions in the foreign currency market.
- The adoption of several new laws to improve the legislative framework governing the business environment.
- The ongoing implementation of the State Ownership Policy, which regulates state involvement in economic activities.
“The most important action the government can take to create conditions for private sector growth is to reduce policy uncertainty by implementing a stable and structured set of regulations for doing business in Egypt that aligns with international standards," said Norhan El Gabaly, Vice Chairman of the Egyptian Junior Business Association and Managing Director of Polyserve for Fertilizers and Chemicals.
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Research done by the World Bank Group demonstrates that Egypt has clear opportunities that it can capitalize on. The 2020 Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) highlighted the potential of sectors such as agribusiness - indicating that approximately US$10 billion in export potential in agriculture and food remain untapped, manufacturing - also indicating that the average share of GDP and employment in 2020 have been 16.6 percent and 12 percent respectively, and information and communication technology - where Egypt is well positioned to become a regional digital hub for the Middle East and Africa.
Sustainable Agriculture and Climate-Smart Crops
Picture a future where Egypt's ancient Nile Delta, once threatened by climate change, thrives as a beacon of agricultural innovation & resilience. Fields of quinoa and pier millet crops sway in the breeze, tended to by automated machines operated by women and men, while tourists walk in the periphery of the farm with AR headsets, tasting local delicacies and diving into the rich history of the land. The Nile Delta has been identified as one of the spots most vulnerable to climate change and could even drown. This is one of the critical reasons why UNDP chose this project to empower the vulnerable communities here.
The Climate Smart Crops (CSC) project helped define a successful route to scaling the project through the direct involvement of private sector players. Just as importantly, it validated the Accelerator Labs' approach within the Country Office. The project team prioritized Panicum, Quinoa, and Pier millets as potential game-changers for Egyptian agriculture. This approach recognizes a crucial step often overlooked in foresight exercises: deeply understanding the present before imagining the future.
The journey began with a comprehensive ‘sensing’ phase, which involved 4 field visits and 17 interviews with a wide range of stakeholders that could potentially be relevant to agriculture in Egypt- from think tanks and academia to the private sector and policymakers. This was followed by a phase of behavioral analysis of agricultural bodies that oversaw various aspects of agriculture like irrigation, farmers cooperatives etc. through 8 in-depth interviews. This gave the team a thorough understanding of the agricultural value chains that would be interesting to pilot this project. The team then dove deeper through a socio-economic analysis, using focus groups and surveys with farmers to gain insights on income models, education levels and climate change awareness. Last but not least, the team conducted about 60 interviews with the private sector players to understand potential paths to scale.
“Phase One was conducted with agricultural stakeholders from Cairo or other urban areas," Engy explains. The team conducted 30 interviews with these stakeholders, including policy-makers, think tanks, and NGOs, focusing on signal mapping - a way to collect, categorize, and analyze signals of change - and identifying drivers of change. These were then used to build initial scenarios for farmers in Phase 2.
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Phase Two was designed to engage the rural community more deeply and understand their preferred futures, needs and concerns regarding CSCs. “A three-day workshop was designed to immerse participants in a holistic future-thinking journey." These workshops employed a variety of creative techniques to help participants envision Egypt in 2050, including storytelling and video immersion, gaming, and clay modeling.
Challenges and Cultural Sensitivities
The most challenging step for the participants was making the transition from a challenge-focused mindset to a future exploration mindset. "The most challenging step for the participants was making the transition from a challenge-focused mindset to a future exploration mindset. They needed to let go of this 'solutioning' mindset and get into the 'futuring' mindset,” Engy reflects. This struggle is common in foresight exercises, especially when working with stakeholders accustomed to problem-solving rather than imagining.
Cultural dynamics, particularly age-related, posed another challenge because “in Egypt, there’s a tradition that younger people listen to the older and don’t really voice their opinion or disagree with them, as a sign of respect”.
When the team decided to explore the importance of the role of women in agriculture in the workshops, they knew they needed to ensure that men and women were equally engaged in the process. “We didn’t want men to feel ‘sidelined’,” says Engy. To accommodate this, the team divided the workshop participants into five groups, with three of them building scenarios on the future of women in agriculture in Egypt, while the remaining two focused on men.
Impact and Future Directions
The foresight exercise set off a chain reaction across multiple sectors: In the policy arena, the team's work caught the attention of high-level decision-makers. Following this exercise, the Ministry of International Cooperation, which had been a part of the process, approached the team to help them apply their foresight expertise in another initiative that focused on empowering private-sector exports.
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The project team produced actionable concept notes and signed MoUs at COP 28 on crucial issues like agro-tourism with the Knowledge Economy Foundation (KEF) and women’s empowerment in agriculture with the Egyptian Food Bank. The private sector stakeholder, Tseppas, also began exploring climate-smart crop opportunities.
Within UNDP itself, the project broadened UNDP Egypt's focus to include food systems and sustainable agriculture and, as Engy puts it, “It opened up the portfolio for agriculture”. The project's most significant impact was changing mindsets.
For country offices looking to embark on a similar journey, Engy offers some important advice:
- Be ready to challenge your assumptions.
- Cast your net wide when you consider stakeholders to engage.
- Make your foresight exercise tangible, contextual, and immersive.
- Never underestimate cultural sensitivities.
- Leverage foresight's collaborative power to bring various government ministries together.
New Cities and Urban Development
Egypt's 4th generation cities will transform the Egyptian property market into a sustainable and innovative hub. Egypt is emerging as a hub for sustainable smart living. This is due to the country's plans involving the development of new 4th generation cities. These cities are part of Egypt's Vision 2030, intending to diversify the economy.
Examples of these cities include:
- Upper Egypt’s New Sohag, establishing itself as an economic and industrial powerhouse.
- New Alamein, evolving into one of Egypt’s premier coastal destinations, with an emphasis on luxury tourism, entertainment, and urban living.
- New Mansoura, gaining attention as an education and technology hub in northern Egypt.
With these 4th generation cities rapidly evolving, Egypt is positioned to lead the MENA region in smart and sustainable urban development.
The Future of Egypt Project
For the two hours drivers can spend on the eight-lane, often empty, highway from Cairo to El Dabaa on the north coast, all there is to see is miles and miles of intensively farmed land on each side. Ten years ago, this expanse of the Western desert was little more than rocks and sand. It is the first stage of the vast Future of Egypt project, which will eventually encompass 2.2m feddans (9,240 sq km, or 3,500 sq miles) - an area the size of Cyprus.
“The map of the Egyptian desert is changing colour,” declared a recent promotional video, “from yellow to green”. Satellite images of the area show hundreds of fields with centre-pivot irrigation (in which sprinklers rotate over the crops), some up to a kilometre in diameter. An artificial river 70 miles (114km) long is nearing completion at a cost of more than $5bn (£3.9bn). Once completed, it will carry 3.5bn cubic metres of water a year to the fields.
This multibillion-dollar megaproject accounts for just over half of the Egyptian government’s plan to turn 16,800 sq km of desert into farmland before 2027. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced this ambitious project shortly after coming to power in 2014 in a military coup.
Challenges and Concerns
Yet Egypt is already suffering from an annual water deficit of 7bn cubic metres, according to the UN. It is also dealing with austerity cuts to address a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 90% that has ballooned under the Sisi administration, largely due to its lavish spending on infrastructure megaprojects and new equipment for the armed forces.
Critics of expensive land-reclamation schemes question the cost to the public purse and the ecosystem of military-led agriculture projects that have boosted exports but have done little to prevent massive food-price inflation, which in April, was the fifth-highest in the world.
The following table summarizes key economic indicators and targets for Egypt:
| Indicator | Target (by 2030) |
|---|---|
| Private Investment Contribution | 65% of total investments |
| Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) | US$60 billion |
| Exports | US$145 billion per year |
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