President Abdel Fattah El Sisi inaugurated 32 new projects in Badr City, located in north eastern Cairo.  The projects will be carried out by Egypt’s Armed Forces Engineering Authority (AFEA), according to a government press release.

The new projects were implemented by the Armed Forces in collaborations with ministries, and public and private sector companies.

The AFEA is currently establishing 659 development projects and has completed 1,042 projects to date.

The ministry is working on building 656,000 social housing units, at a total cost of EGP 97 billion, to be implemented in two phases, said Moustafa Madbouly, Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities.

The first phase of the project is expected to have 256,000 housing units worth EGP 37 billion. The projected completion date is the end of 2016.

The second phase will see the completion of an additional 400,000 housing units at a total cost of EGP 60 billion.

Nearly 850,000 people are living in slums and about EGP 14 billion is needed to develop them, said Sisi.

President Sisi has called on Madbouly to complete development projects to improve unsafe settlement areas like Duwaiq and Tal Al Aqareb, according to Egypt Independent.

It will take two years to develop these slums, Sisi added.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed in a recent report that the number of slums in Egypt was over 1000, with more than 300 in Greater Cairo.