February 28th, 2017
Time: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Location: Nile Ballroom - Conrad Hotel | 1191 Nile Corniche, Cairo/Egypt

The Seminar Series provides a platform for all people striving to identify and implement evidence-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. The series is part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project called “Evaluating Impact and Building Capacity” (EIBC) that is implemented by IFPRI. It features research-based presentations by top local and international experts on key development topics. Recording and publishing all the events online will create a knowledge repository to inform policy making in Egypt and beyond.

"Economic Development, Nutrition, and Social Safety Net Reforms in Egypt"

Egypt’s social safety net includes several programs to alleviate poverty and to protect vulnerable people from the impacts of economic crises and other shocks. They include food subsidy programs and—since more recently—the Takaful and Karama cash transfer program. Food subsidies have a long history in Egypt and cover the majority of the Egyptian population. The food subsidy system has undergone major reforms since 2014. The Takaful and Karama program was initiated in 2015 to cushion the effects of recent economic reforms on the poorest people and covers around one million poor households thus far.

The objective of this IFPRI Egypt Seminar is to contribute to the ongoing debate on social safety net reforms in Egypt. The seminar will launch IFPRI’s new book: Nutrition and Economic Development: Exploring Egypt’s Exceptionalism and the Role of Food Subsidies - the book was published with financial support from IFAD and CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM). Olivier Ecker, Research Fellow at IFPRI and lead author of the book, will present the book’s key findings and will discuss options as to how social protection programs may be better leveraged for reducing Egypt’s exceptionally pronounced double burden of malnutrition—the simultaneous presence of chronic undernutrition and overnutrition.

Ahmed Khorshed, Advisor to the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, will provide an overview of recent reforms in the food subsidy system and will share his perspectives as to how the future of social protection in Egypt may look like. Nevine El-Kabbag, First Assistant to the Minister of Social Solidarity and Director of the Takaful and Karama program, will present an update on the implementation of the program and her vision for social protection in Egypt. In an exclusive video interview, Santiago Levy, Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank and former Deputy Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico, will share his first-hand experience of how Mexico moved from a food subsidy-based system to a conditional cash transfer program as the prime mechanism for social protection and poverty alleviation. Santiago Levy is the main architect of Mexico’s renowned Progresa-Oportunidades program—one of the world’s first and most successful conditional cash transfer programs. The seminar organizers hope that the new research findings and policy insights brought to the debate will be of use in Egypt’s ongoing social safety net reform process.