Global Health, Population and Development Congress Press Conference

Sunday, July 30

On behalf of the United Nations in Egypt, it is my pleasure to be here today with H.E. Dr. Khaled Abdelghaffar, and the senior team from the Ministry of Health and Population; Dr. Tarek Tawfik, Dr. Hossam Abdelghaffar and Dr. Mohamed El Tayeb.

We are proud of our strong and long standing partnership and very much commend the timeliness of this Population, Health and Development Congress.

This is the 29th year since the International Conference on Population and Development was organized in Cairo from 5th to 13th September 1994 which released the remarkable “Cairo Declaration”. Since then, the world has made a lot of progress on the implementation of the “International Conference on Population and Development”, ICPD programme of Action, and more accelerated efforts are required.

The world will come together this September at the SDG Summit to recommit and strengthen our united efforts in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. It is clear that optimizing the demographic dividend [and] that “the right to development goes hand-in-hand with the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment” as the UN Secretary General refers to as he speaks about priorities for this year.  

Egypt has made notable progress since its adoption of the SDGs in 2015 – the first in the region to do so. Egypt launched its Vision 2030 as a guide to reaching the SDGs. It also initiated several national strategies in line with Egypt Vision 2030 – most notably the National Population Strategy, Haya Karima, the National Project for the Development of the Egyptian Family, and the National Strategy on the Empowerment of Egyptian Women.

Egypt is making progress on the health, population and development agenda:

On improving sexual and reproductive health and family planning. As per the Egypt Family Health Survey 2021, the use of modern methods of family planning has increased to 64.7% (from 56.9% in 2014) and the fertility rate has been reduced to 2.85 from 3.5 in 2014. But more can be done. The unmet need for family planning is still high at 13.8% and it is even above 15% among the age groups of 15 to 29 years.

For this Congress, the UN system is fully mobilised to bring in global expertise and experiences – especially in light of emerging trends and priorities such as building demographic resilience (especially in light of Egypt’s young population), promoting the role of digitalization and addressing the climate emergency.

We must be reminded that climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking water, and sufficient food. WHO reports that the direct damage costs to health (excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture and water and sanitation), is estimated to be between USD 2-4 billion per year by 2030.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to recognize the technical leadership and expertise of the World Health Organization, WHO, and the UN Population Fund, UNFPA, for steering the efforts of the UN system in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Population.

With the support of my office, the two technical lead agencies, WHO and UNFPA, spearheaded the UN system’s engagement, with technical and in-kind contributions to the agenda of the Congress also received from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNAIDS, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UNESCO, UNICEF, and UN HABITAT. This also builds on existing joint UN initiatives such as “One Health”.

Allow me to briefly mention a few key points linked to effective multilateralism, the importance of national ownership and the potential that partnerships can bring for realising the sustainable development agenda for all.  

This Congress is an opportunity to truly shape Egypt and the region’s direction on ensuring equitable and accessible health and realizing the demographic dividend to address population opportunities for all. Global engagement and multilateralism enables us to learn from one another, build solutions that can be adapted to every context, and scale for larger impact.

On ownership, the foundation for this effort here in Egypt, is the commitment of the Government to realize the rights of all of its citizens, of all people in Egypt, and in particular the rights of women and girls. This political commitment is clear at all levels.

This commitment is also codified into the Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework between the UN and the Government, signed earlier this month under the auspices of H.E. Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly, and through the leadership and coordination of H.E. Dr. Rania El-Mashat. Underlining the Government’s highest level of commitment, strengthening human capital is one of the pillars – making direct reference to not only improvement of the health system and health access, but also emphasis on well-being and the social determinants of health.

Strengthening human capital also means that communities are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills and are provided with opportunities to exercise their rights and choices.

Egypt has many successes to build upon.

In 2022 alone, the UN, under the leadership of WHO, continued support to the health insurance law’s development. In addition, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Population, the Ministry of Finance and CAPMAS, the National Health Accounts report was recently launched. This report highlights health financing data in Egypt, with specific reference to needed scale-up of investments in the health sector.  

In addition, the UN, under the leadership of UNFPA and with generous contributions from the European Union, continued to support the Ministry of Health and Population for implementation of the National Population Strategy through technical and institutional capacity building, community engagement and empowerment of adolescents, young people and women. Support was provided to family planning units with procurement and capacity building of Ministry staff – with all 5,500 units providing at least three modern family planning methods.

And finally - I would like to end by making reference to the UN Secretary General’s report “Our Common Agenda”. This report outlines the UN’s forward looking vision for the world - anchored in the principles of leaving no-one behind, protecting our planet (especially the right to a healthy environment), strengthening preparedness (including the acceleration of health technologies and ensuring universal health coverage), and of course, placing women and girls at the center.

With this, I would like to thank you all and I look forward to partnering with the Ministry of Health and Population, on behalf of the Government of Egypt, in a successful Congress.