Egypt’s cabinet has approved a supplementary fund of USD 500 mn (EGP 8.1 bn) from the World Bank (WB) for funding the country’s social housing program, coming under a portfolio worth USD 8 bn (EGP 129.1 bn), Invest-Gate reports.

The WB’s “Inclusive Housing Finance Program” is part of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s directives to accelerate the completion of these public housing developments, therefore swiftly delivering the residential units to low-income citizens, according to a recent cabinet statement.

During the meeting on November 5, the cabinet also nodded the Ministry of Finance’s proposal to ease some of the value-added tax (VAT) reimbursement procedures, which reflect the government’s eagerness to handle investors’ complaints, in a bid to overcome all predicaments that have been caused under the umbrella of the current law.

Launched in 2015, the WB’s program is aimed at boosting the social housing fund’s efficiency “through strengthening its skills, abilities, processes, and resources … Its objectives are to improve the affordability of formal housing for low-income households in Egypt and to strengthen the capacity of the Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund (MFF) to design policies and coordinate programs in the social housing sector,” according to the financial institution’s official website.

“To date, the program benefited 241,517 families. As of last January, 66% of the beneficiaries fall under the average poverty line in Egypt; 98% fall below the average monthly income level per household in Egypt; 63% fall below the minimum wage level; and 84% of the project’s beneficiaries fall under the median Egyptian wage level, thus catering to the bottom 40% of the Egyptian population. These figures demonstrate the importance of the project’s contribution to Egypt’s social safety net, especially at a time when inflation is on the rise,” read the website.

On November 5, CEO of MFF Mai Abdel Hamid revealed that the state is also working to bolster Egyptian women’s real estate ownership, especially widows and divorcees, noting that 55,000 women-led families have received social housing units, marking 20.5% of total beneficiaries. When it comes to youth, 70% of the recipients are under 40 years old.