Although Egypt ranked 88 out of 168 countries according to the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, it ranked 15 out of 37 countries with Lower Middle Income in fighting corruption in the precense of a strong, supportive and committed political leadership to achieve sustainable development, according to the 2017 Inclusive Growth and Development Report issued by the World Economic Forum.
The country moreover marked an intermediate score in both Education and Skills, with 4.39 points; it also achieved good scores in Basic Services and Infrastructure with 4.71 points, enabling it to rank 17 out of 37 countries.
While on the other hand, Egypt received low scores in other development sectors, as despite the glowing glimpse of young entrepreneurs in Egypt, the country ranked 26 in Asset Building and Entrepreneurship.
Egypt moreover marked a low score in Financial Intermediation of Real Economy Investments, ranking 33 out of 37 countries.
In Employment and Labor Compensation, it ranked 34, with 3.51 points. This pushed down Egypt’s overall score in the Inclusion Development Index (IDI) to 2.94, and placed it in 73 place, out of the 79 developing economies listed in the index.
The report pointed out that the country is struggling with many aspects of inclusive growth as, over the past five years, the GDP per capita and labor productivity have barely grown; income and wealth inequality remain high and unemployment is also high, especially among the young, with the dependency ratio increasing. This means that more and more people who are not in the workforce need to be supported by ever-fewer workers.
Egypt also suffers from an extremely high debt-to-GDP ratio and high carbon intensity of GDP, placing a burden on its future.
The report indicates that the education system does not reach a sufficient proportion of the population and that quality is lacking.
"Despite a history of entrepreneurship, business and employment creation remain constrained by insufficient finance, poor transport infrastructure, and pervasive corruption. Many workers are in vulnerable employment situations, often in the informal economy," the report read.
There are 109 economies surveyed in the report, which attempts to improve the understanding of how countries can use a diverse spectrum of policy incentives and institutional mechanisms to make economic growth more socially inclusive without dampening incentives to work, save and investment.
It divided the countries into two main categories: advanced and developing economies, based on the GDP per capita. The developing countries were divided into three main categories: upper-middle income economies, lower-middle income economies and low economies.
The report ranks countries based on 12 Key Performance Indicators of inclusive development, providing a more complete measure of economic development than GDP growth alone.
The IDI index has three pillars. The first is Growth and Development, including GDP growth; labor force participation and productivity; and healthy life expectancy.
The second pillar is Inclusion, covering median household income, poverty and two inequality measures; while the third one is Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, including adjusted net saving, demographic dependency ratio, public debt and carbon intensity.
The report build its analysis on 140 Policy and Institutional Indicators across 15 policy domains that have the potential to drive both stronger growth and wider social inclusion. Other indicator categories include: Basic Services and Infrastructure; Corruption and Rents; Financial Intermediation of Real Economy Investment; Employment and Labor Compensation; and Fiscal Transfers.
