Resource information
This report investigates Egypt's
regional economic growth, explores the causes for
geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy
options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive
development. In Egypt, despite rapid progress in most
welfare indicators in lagging regions, there are still
substantial gaps in consumption and opportunities between
growth poles and the rest of the country. This report's
central proposal is adopting spatial integration as a
development platform, in which the policy focus shifts from
spreading out industrial location to spreading out access to
basic public services and facilitating factor mobility,
which will make growth more inclusive and development more
balanced in Egypt. Egypt's new political environment
provides an opportunity to examine this perennial problem
from a new perspective. Adopting integration as a
development platform is not simple because spatial
disparities are spanned in three dimensions: urban/rural
dichotomies, the upper Egypt/lower Egypt duality, and the
differences between large metropolises and the rest of the
country. This report first identifies the gaps in
consumption and in opportunities, showing the stark
contrasts between regions and how they evolve through time.
It then explores the causes of the gaps, revealing a
multiplicity of factors and exposing the complexity of the
problem. Finally, the bulk of the report presents the policy
options to address the integration challenges.
