The debt crisis will not be solved by a new loan
External debt payments for a year exceed foreign currency reserves and current debt policy is not sustainable
Files: Economic Rights
7 Jul 2022
This is the English edition of the EIPR research paper titled "Egyptian social protection policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic... considerable efforts with limited impact", which was published in Arabic language last October.
31 Mar 2022
Today, March 31st, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights published the English translation of its periodic report on external debt, titled “External Debt rises again in 2020 and Coronavirus is not the only reason”. The report that was published in Arabic in August 2021 is the most recent issue of the series on foreign debt, which has been published by EIPR since 2017. It shows that Egypt’s external debts jumped in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This requirement constitutes an encroachment on the concepts of "energy poverty" and "energy justice", because it drains energy resources for the benefit of these factories at the expense of making them available to Egyptian families, especially the poorest. It also contradicts the Goal 7 of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030: "Clean energy at affordable prices", because it sells polluting energy to factories at lower prices than they are, thus impeding the shift towards clean energy.
Egypt has missed that opportunity, so far, according to the paper published by EIPR, on October the 17th, titled: "Four flaws: Assessing the Egyptian-IMF energy subsidies reform". The publication coincides with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The paper depends on the principle: "clean energy guaranteed to all at reasonable prices", which is the seventh goal of the sustainable development goals that the Egyptian state adopted and is supposed to achieve (Egypt 2030).
The EIPR is monitoring actions by the government and Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to mitigate the economic and social impact of preventive measures to combat the spread of COVID-19. We are assessing such action in light of the protection of citizens’ lives, health, and income and the imperative not to endanger workers’ health and lives for the sake of running the economy at full capacity.
