Egypt’s Minister of Planning, Follow-up and Administrative Reform Hala al-Saeed announced Monday objectives of the general framework for the 2018-2022 medium-term sustainable development plan in the fields of social and urban development and environmental improvement. Saeed pointed out in a press conference that the plan aims at reducing population growth from 2.65 in 2017 to 2.1 percent by the end of the four-year plan. The government also seeks reducing the inflation rate from 14.3 percent in February 2018 to 8.5 percent by the end of the plan and the illiteracy level to 20 percent also by 2022 from 26 percent in 2018, the minister added. She further noted that they also target a reduction in the proportion of people below the poverty line to 22 percent in 2022, compared to 27.8 percent in 2015. “The government targets reducing the economic and social disparities among different regions in Egypt, so that the gap in poverty rates does not exceed 20 percent among the governorates,” she explained. Saeed added that the plan further targets increasing the participation of women and youth in labor force to narrow gender and age gap in unemployment rates in light of its keenness to achieve the social justice needed to implement comprehensive and sustainable development in the constant pursuit of the objectives of Egypt’s vision 2030. In the field of urban development and environmental improvement, Saeed said that the four-year plan seeks to increase the space of the Egyptian urban area, raising the percentage of the inhabited area from seven percent to 10 percent by the end of the plan. It also targets allocating more than 60 percent of public investments for the development of the governorates in Upper Egypt and the borders within the framework of the regions development programs. The Minister pointed out that the overall scheme aims at expanding the construction of cities and new urban communities to accommodate about 10 million people with the rationalization of energy uses and to continue exerting efforts on environmental development, treatment of pollutants and the reduction of the proportion of carbon dioxide emissions to global levels. In addition to that, it seeks expanding the use of clean technology in waste recycling projects at the level of all governorates.