The Human Development Index (HDI) is the most widely used indicator of human development and has changed how people view the concept.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compiles the Human Development Index (HDI) of 193 nations in the annual Human Development Report. The HDI was first published in 1990 with the goal of being a more comprehensive measure of human development than purely economic measures such as gross domestic product.
Worldwide map of HDI levels by country.
Understanding the HDI
The index incorporates three dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge, and decent living standards. Various indicators are used to quantify how countries perform on each dimension.
The indicators used in the 2022 report were life expectancy at birth; expected years of schooling for children; mean years of schooling for adults; and gross national income per capita. The indicators are used to create a health index, an education index and an income index, each with a value between 0 and 1. The geometric mean of the three indices-that is, the cube root of the product of the indices-is the human development index.
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The data used to calculate HDI comes mostly from United Nations agencies and international institutions, such as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Rarely, when one of the indicators is missing, cross-country regression models are used.
The Human Development Report includes data for all 193 member states of the United Nations, as well as Hong Kong SAR and Palestine. However, the Human Development Index is not calculated for two UN member states: Monaco and North Korea, only some components of the index are calculated for these two countries. The Human Development Report also reports the HDI for various groups of countries.
Several aspects of the index have received criticism.
Egypt's HDI Performance
In terms of the human development index (HDI) of Egypt, the value was 0.728 points in 2022, leaving it in 105th place in the table of 193 countries published. The latest value from 2023 is 0.754 points, an increase from 0.728 points in 2022. In comparison, the world average is 0.744 points, based on data from 185 countries. Historically, the average for Egypt from 1980 to 2023 is 0.637 points.
Egypt’s HDI value for 2022 is 0.728 - putting the country in the high human development category.
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In terms of global ranking, Egypt climbed from 116th out of 189 countries in 2019 to 105th out of 193 countries and territories in the 2022/23 Human Development Index. This advancement illustrates Egypt's efforts to narrow the development gap.
The value of the Human Development Index in Egypt changed from 0.567 to 0.728, a change of 28.4 percent between 1990 and 2022. Between 1990 and 2022, Egypt's life expectancy at birth increased by 6.0 years, expected years of schooling increased by 3.7 years and mean years of schooling increased by 4.5 years.
The Egyptian government celebrated the launch of the UNDP 2021 HDI report as evidence of its success in improving citizens’ lives. However, the question arises as to whether freedom is also necessary for progress in human development.
Over the period covered by the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes (2006-21), Egypt consistently remained in the Mostly Unfree and Mostly Unprosperous categories. Its freedom score peaked at 46.6 in 2011, but then gradually decreased over the years, reaching 35.8, before slightly improving to 37 in 2021. Between 2011 and 2022, Egypt faced unprecedented challenges both at national and regional levels.
At the national level, Egypt experienced staggering population growth, with over 20 million births in this period. The population reached over 104 million in 2022, one-third of whom are under the age of fourteen. This is particularly problematic given the urban concentration on the Nile Delta and along the length of the Nile River, which together account for just 6.8 percent of Egypt’s one million square kilometers.
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These and other factors led to political turmoil: millions of young Egyptians took to the streets in 2011 in a massive uprising demanding better standards of living, eradication of corruption, and more democratic reforms. The protests sparked a revolution, but the turmoil continued, characterized by terrorist attacks targeting civilians, particularly Christian minorities, foreigners, and tourists.
At the regional level, instability in neighboring countries such as Syria and Libya caused an influx of Egyptian workers returning home, increasing the already high unemployment rate. The turbulence in these countries also led to security issues, including illegal migration, human trafficking, and border infiltration by Islamic terrorist groups and the illegal trade of military weapons. As the decade came to an end the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
To address these challenges, the government began implementing economic reforms in 2014, including reducing fuel subsidies and redirecting those funds toward targeted cash assistance programs for the most vulnerable members of society. In 2016 the Egyptian government sought support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which resulted in a loan of US$12 billion.
The loan was accompanied by a socioeconomic program aimed at achieving macroeconomic stability and improving the quality of life for Egyptians. The government intensified investment in infrastructure projects, as well as social expenditure, implementing major development projects and initiatives in education, health, housing, and utilities. It also expanded social protection programs to mitigate the impact of several monetary and fiscal reforms that were imposed as conditions of the IMF loan (which included cutting energy and fuel subsidies, currency devaluation, and replacing the existing sales tax with higher value-added tax, VAT), and to improve Egyptians’ quality of life.
The result of these changes was that Egypt improved its ranking on the HDI. In 2006, Egypt ranked 111 out of 177 countries. Progress stalled in 2011, and the country’s ranking fell to 113 (of 187).
Economic Factors and Their Impact
The government’s economic reforms, supported by the US$12 billion loan from the IMF, have helped stabilize the country’s economy in recent years and led to a budget primary surplus. The reform of energy subsidies, in particular, played a large part in this. However, tax revenues remain insufficient and are heavily dependent on indirect taxes, specifically VAT. This resulted in a tax revenue of 12 percent of GDP in fiscal year (FY) 2020/2021.
The government financed its spending by increasing its debt, which reached 87.5 percent of GDP in 2020/2021, with external debt at 34.2 percent of GDP. This affected the budget allocation, with interest payments alone accounting for 33 percent of total spending in the 2021/2022 budget.
Although the central bank devalued the Egyptian pound in 2016, it did not take the necessary measures to keep the Egyptian pound floating, which resulted in a pegged rate and created an unrealistic exchange rate. This led the government to accumulate more debt. And because of the structural issues in the Egyptian economy-characterized by low productivity and a reliance on non-tradable, less sophisticated activities like wholesale, transportation, and construction-this has had a negative impact on the trade balance and reduced the competitiveness of Egyptian exports.
This was accompanied, throughout 2016-22, by the expansion in the activities of state-owned enterprises and public economic authorities, both of which are generally economically inefficient entities. As a result, these entities have a negative impact on the Treasury, as the sum of the transfers they received (subsidies, loans, and contributions) is greater than the taxes and dividends paid to the Treasury.
To put this in perspective, in FY 2022/2023 the shortfall between Treasury disbursements and revenues from these bodies was EGP 169.7 billion. This is equivalent to almost 120 percent of the allocations for food subsidy, fuel subsidy, cash transfer programs, and baby formula and children’s medicine subsidy combined for the 2022/2023 budget.
The implementation of these policies resulted in the private sector, particularly non-oil sectors, experiencing contraction, making its share of investments 21.4 percent in FY 2022/2023. And despite reforms taken, the government still couldn’t attract foreign direct investment (FDI).
This macroeconomic environment has made the Egyptian economy more susceptible to exogenous shocks, due to its high dependency on imports for raw materials, intermediate goods, and investment goods, as well as its reliance on tourism, expats’ remittances, and revenue from the Suez Canal as the main sources of foreign currency.
In early 2022, Egypt faced a major challenge when the United States Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This led to a large exodus of portfolio investments, estimated at around US$21 billion.
The government of Egypt had to take drastic measures to prevent further deterioration of foreign currency reserves, including restrictions on imports to reduce the outflow of foreign currency. However, these measures had unintended consequences: they created a supply shock that disrupted production and caused a backlog of goods worth US$14 billion at ports. The import restrictions caused a decline in exports as well (especially because three-quarters of imports are raw materials, intermediate, and investment goods).
In March 2022 the Central Bank of Egypt devalued the Egyptian pound by almost 16 percent. As inflation kept rising, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the supply shock created by import restrictions, another social mitigation package was announced in July 2022.
In parallel, the government of Egypt turned to the IMF to seek help and negotiate a new deal under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The government announced a gradual easing of import restrictions to alleviate supply problems, and released goods that were stuck at ports. At the end of October 2022, Egypt and the IMF agreed an additional loan of US$3.1 billion. As part of the agreement the government agreed to implement a durable flexible exchange rate.
In November, the Central Bank of Egypt implemented a third devaluation of the Egyptian pound, causing a sharp decline in its value.
Education and Health Indicators
Egypt’s pre-university education system is the largest in the MENA region, in terms of number of students and teachers. In 2019/2020, about 23.6 million students were enrolled in the system, with about 1,019,000 teachers. Despite achieving high enrollment rates in primary schools and a low dropout rate, Egypt is performing poorly on one of the most important indicators of educational quality: class size. It is worth mentioning that in the year 2019/2020 the average class size across all education levels at public schools, responsible for almost 90 percent of enrollment, was 48.3 students.
Despite the progress made, Egypt still ranks in the bottom decile of countries based on the percentage of students reaching the “Low International Benchmark” set by the TIMSS scoring scale.
Maintaining and improving the health of a population of over 104 million is a tremendous task, especially considering the population growth rate of 2.1 percent per year between 2010 and 2020, higher than the 1.8 percent rate of the previous decade.
The Egyptian government succeeded in increasing life expectancy at birth over the past decade, from 69.9 in 2011 to 71.8 in 2018. In addition, there was significant progress in reducing the child mortality rate. For children under five this has fallen from 28.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2010 to 20.3 deaths in 2019.
Malnutrition and stunting in children remain big challenges for the government but there have been significant improvements. In 2008, almost one in three Egyptian children under the age of five were stunted, but in 2021 the percentage went down to 12.8 percent. Similarly, child wasting came down from 7 percent in 2008 to 3 percent in 2021.
Despite the increase in the ratio of doctors to inhabitants, there has been a decline in the number of doctors working in the public sector in recent years, falling from over 103,000 in 2016 to around 91,000 in 2020. A similar trend took place in the number of hospital beds. Over the past decade, there has been a 9.8 percent decline in the number of hospital beds in the public sector, from 98,319 in 2011 to 88,597 in 2020.
On the other hand, the private sector has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of hospital beds, from 25,287 in 2011 to 33,020 in 2020. Private clinics and pharmacies are the preferred choice as service providers for chronic and acute medical conditions; 53 percent of individuals with chronic conditions seek care at private clinics that offer specialist outpatient care, while 18.5 percent seek medical advice at pharmacies, and 11.5 percent receive care at government hospitals. For acute conditions, about 38 percent of individuals seek medical advice at pharmacies.
Out-of-pocket expenditure is another important issue for access to healthcare.
Poverty and Inequality
Poverty in Egypt has been increasing since the start of the twenty-first century. In FY 1999/2000 the poverty rate was 16.7 percent. By FY 2010/2011 it had risen to 25.2 percent. It continued to increase, reaching a peak of 32.5 percent in FY 2017/2018 due to the devaluation of the Egyptian pound in 2016. For the first time in the decade, the poverty rate dropped, to 29.7 percent in FY 2019/2020.
The official poverty rate is surveyed and calculated by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and a new poverty line is set each survey year. The small decrease in 2019/2020 meant that around four million people were no longer living in poverty.
The Gini index, which measures inequality in distribution of per capita consumption, has barely changed since 2010. In the most recent year for which we have data, FY 2019/2020, Egypt’s Gini index stood at 29.0. This means there was almost no change in wealth distribution, whether through government interventions or through market or labor changes.
The latest Household Income Expenditure and Consumption Survey (HIECS) gives a clearer view of the living conditions of the poor in Egypt. Transfers, in cash or in kind, represent 23.7 percent of national average household income after wages. However, in rural areas this increases to 24 percent, of which around three-quarters were in cash and one-quarter in kind. The average household spends over one-third of its income on food. This is an indicator that jobs in both the formal and informal sectors do not provide sufficient compensation for basic needs.
Egypt Economy
| Gouvernement | |
|---|---|
| GDP Growth (%) [+] | 2024 2.4% |
| Annual GDP [+] | 2024 €354,057M |
| Annual GDP [+] | 2024 $383,109M |
| GDP per capita [+] | 2024 €3,366 |
| GDP per capita [+] | 2024 $3,642 |
| Debt (M.€.) [+] | 2024 321,926 |
| Debt ($M) [+] | 2024 348,342 |
| Debt (%GDP) [+] | 2024 90.93% |
| Debt Per Capita [+] | 2024 €3,060 |
| Debt Per Capita [+] | 2024 $3,311 |
| Deficit (M.€) [+] | 2024 -25,200 |
| Deficit ($M) [+] | 2024 -27,268 |
| Deficit (%GDP) [+] | 2024 -7.12% |
| Expenditure (M.€) [+] | 2024 81,198.9 |
| Expenditure ($M) [+] | 2024 87,861.7 |
| Education Expenditure (M.€) [+] | 2020 8,312.3 |
| Education Expenditure ($M) [+] | 2020 9,486.6 |
| Education Expenditure (%Bud.) [+] | 2020 12.26% |
| Gov. Health Exp. (M.€) [+] | 2022 6,912.9 |
| Gov. Health Exp.($M) [+] | 2022 7,297.6 |
| Gov. Health Exp. (%Bud.) [+] | 2022 7.22% |
| Defence Expenditure (M.€) [+] | 2023 3,169.9 |
| Defence Expenditure ($M) [+] | 2023 3,428.5 |
| Defence Expenditure (%Bud.) [+] | 2023 4.15% |
| Expenditure (%GDP) [+] | 2024 22.93% |
| Expenditure Per Capita [+] | 2024 €772 |
| Expenditure Per Capita [+] | 2024 $835 |
| Education Expenditure P.C [+] | 2020 €83 |
| Education Expenditure P.C [+] | 2020 $94 |
| Gov. Health Exp. P.C. [+] | 2022 €61 |
| Gov. Health Exp. P.C. [+] | 2022 $65 |
| Defence Expenditure P.C. [+] | 2023 €30 |
| Defence Expenditure P.C. [+] | 2023 $33 |
| Moody's Rating [+] | 02/19/2025 Caa1 |
| S&P Rating [+] | 10/10/2025 B |
| Fitch Rating [+] | 05/05/2023 B |
| Corruption Index [+] | 2023 35 |
| Competitiveness Ranking [+] | 2019 93º |
| Fragile States Index [+] | 2024 82.8 |
| Innovation Ranking [+] | 2024 86º |
| Labour | |
| Unemployment rate [+] | 2023Q4 6.6% |
| Unemployed [+] | 2023Q4 2,128K |
| NMW [+] | 2024 $194.2 |
| NMW [+] | 2024 €176.0 |
| Human Capital Ranking [+] | 2017 97º |
| Markets | |
| Euro / Egyptian pounds [+] | 11/06/2025 54.5386 |
| US Dollar exchange rate [+] | 11/06/2025 47.3508 |
| Stock Exchange YTD % [+] | 11/06/2025 34.33% |
| Prices | |
| CPI (overall index) [+] | January 2022 8.0% |
| Money Market | |
| Key rates [+] | 10/05/2025 21.00% |
| Business | |
| Doing Business [+] | 2020 114º |
| Passengers vehicles Year [+] | December 2023 69,175 |
| Annual Vehicles/ 1,000 p. |
The Human Development Index for Egypt published by the United Nations is a composite measure including life expectancy, educational attainment, and income level. It aims to measure not only incomes but life quality as well.
Definition: The Human Development Index measures three basic dimensions of human development: long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living.
Egypt, is a country located at Northern Africa, it has an area of 1,001,450 Km2 and it may be considered a large country.
Egypt, with a population of 105,200,000 people, it is ranked at 14º position by population of 196 countries and has a population density of 105 people per km2.
It's capital is Cairo and its currency is Egyptian pounds
Egypt is holding the 44 position by nominal GDP. Its national debt in 2024 was 321,926 millions of euros (348,342 millions of dollars), ( 90.93% debt-to-GDP ratio) and its public debt per capita is €3,060 euros per inhabitant$3,311 dollars per inhabitant.
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