As a Low Income Food Deficit Country (LIFDC), food security is an important challenge for Egypt, with 17.2% of the Egyptians suffering from food insecurity in 2011 and 5% undernourished during the period from 2008 to 2015
Egypt suffers from the triple burden of malnutrition: obesity, stunting and micronutrient deficiencies (anemia and others). Such burden is very important and economically costly, especially for children. For instance, child undernutrition alone reduces GDP by around 2 percent. Figure 1 shows that this burden is gender sensitive; while only 23.6% of male children, under age 5, are suffering from stunting, this share reached 28.4% for female children in 2008-2014. Same pattern is observed in the prevalence of overweight, while only 16% are overweight among male children under age 5, this rate reached 21.2% for female. For underweight and wasting indicators, the opposite is observed; prevalence among male children under age 5 is higher than their female counterparts.
Figure 1: Prevalence of Child Malnutrition (% of children under age 5) – (2008-2014)
Source: World Development Indicators-2015
Social safety programs are necessary tools to protect the poor and food unsecured, in Egypt, as well as in other countries, against price shocks, especially during crises. In Egypt, social protection spending increased from in 2009, to reach 11.3% of GDP, compared to 7.3% of GDP in 2007 (Figure 2). This can be explained as a result of the food crises of 2008.
Figure 2: Government spending on social protection as share of GDP (%)
Source: Arab Spatial
Among the social protection programs applied in Egypt; food subsidies is a crucial tool affecting “directly” food security in Egypt, as it provides households with bread and other basic food commodities at a low price. According to the recent reforms, the new bread system provides 150 loaves of subsidized bread per month per person in household using ration cards. Based on this new system, when individuals consume less than their quotas (5 loaves per day), they get points that can be exchanged with other subsidized products from the specific outlets, in addition to their specific quotas of ration products. This new system provides more balanced diets by offering 20 different rationed products, to extend the choice of commodities, which gives more freedom to the consumers concerning their diets.
“Takaful and Karama” is another significant social protection program that affects food security “indirectly” by providing the households with income transfers. Under the umbrella of “Takaful”, which means “Solidarity”, poor families receive a monthly income transfer conditional upon school attendance rate of 80% for children aged between 6-18,, medical check-ups for mothers and children under age 6, and on attending nutrition classes. While, “Karama”, which means “Dignity”, is unconditional income transfer to the elderly and people with disabilities
Therefore, notwithstanding the successes of the different social protection programs applied in Egypt, a lot of work still needs to be done to reduce the prevalence of the food insecure and to decrease its burden in Egypt, mainly among children. More analysis on the impact of the different programs on the households’ health and nutrition status should be done. Finally more gender-sensitive programs that target women should be applied, as these programs may yield to an improvement in health and education of children, which is required to put an end to the intergenerational poverty. As described by SOFA in 2015, programs targeting women reduces women’s time constraints and strengthens their control over income, which enhance maternal and child welfare.
