Arab Republic of Egypt. The Accountability State. Authority’s Role in Social Auditing. SAI Egypt

1.

Arab Republic of Egypt
The Accountability State
Authority’s Role in Social
Auditing

2.

Social Auditing in the Arab Republic of Egypt
Social auditing in the Arab Republic of Egypt witnesses continuity and
growth in various fields, such as education, health and social work.
Stakeholders, such as ministries and government agencies, in
collaboration with NGOs and civil society, conduct social auditing to
assess social policies and programs as well as achieve positive change in
society.
These audits aim to improve the quality of life and achieve sustainable
development in Egypt.

3.

Takaful and Karama
(solidarity and dignity)
for Social Protection

4.

• The “Takaful and Karama” Program is a conditional cash assistance Program
that provides assistance to poor and most in need families. This is done by
objectively targeting families which have low economic and social indicators
that prevent them from satisfying their basic needs and ensuring health and
educational rights for their children.
• The Ministry of Social Solidarity, in cooperation with some ministries and
other entities, began implementing a cash support program with the aim of
supporting the poorest categories in the villages of Upper Egypt and in some
areas in Cairo and Giza governorates where some families suffering from
extreme poverty live.

5.

The "Takaful and Karama" Program has many economic, social and humanitarian
objectives, as it essentially targets two categories:
• The First Category: Families which have children enrolled in the various levels of
education up to secondary school, or children who need health care and follow-up.
This category is the category on which the "Takaful Program" is applied.
• The Second Category: This is the category of the elderly over 65 years of age who
are unable to work and do not have fixed sources of income, or those with
disabilities that prevent them from working and earning their living. They also do
not have a fixed income, and this is the category to which the “Karama Program” is
applied.
The implementation of the “Takaful and Karama” Program reflects a deep
understanding of the complex issue of social justice, which requires a radical and
comprehensive vision to be solved. The Egyptian Government has realized the
importance of the issue of social justice and the redistribution of government
support in order to reach those who truly deserve it.

6.

Participating parties in implementing the "Takaful and Karama” Program:
- The Ministry of Social Solidarity: It is the ministry entrusted with implementing and
supervising the selection of beneficiaries, and through it, the smart card is issued with which
disbursements are made to the beneficiaries.
- The Ministry of Education: It provides those responsible for implementing the Takaful
Program with the attendance rate of children from families eligible for the program and their
attendance in schools with an attendance rate of not less than 80% of the actual school days.
- The Ministry of Finance: It is the one that provides cash support to beneficiaries according to
the plan set by the Ministry of Solidarity.
- The Ministry of Interior: Through it, the accuracy of the data provided by families who
request to benefit from one of the two programs is verified.
- Egypt Post Authority: The amounts due to the Program’s beneficiaries are disbursed
through its offices located everywhere.
The "Takaful and Karama“ Program is followed up by some international bodies such as the
World Bank, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations
Development Programme (UNPD) for cooperation with regard to employment only.

7.

The “Takaful and Karama” Program achieved the lofty meaning that the State desires in
improving the living conditions of families which need decisive intervention to extend a helping
hand to them.
We could enumerate the positive aspects as follows:
On the short term, the Program helped reducing dropout rates from education.
It forced poor families in villages and hamlets to undergo health follow-up for their children
as the Takaful Program provides conditional financial assistance to families with children in
different stages of education, or young children who need health care and follow-up.
The Program provided assistance to people with special needs and the elderly over the age of
65, helping them provide their necessary needs and providing them with social protection.
The salaries provided by the “Takaful and Karama” Program were able to open windows of
hope for the poor citizens of those areas, given that the government began to realize their
suffering.
The Program contributed to activating the efforts of young people with government
development programs as well as stimulating the incentives of public satisfaction towards
the State’s general performance regarding them. Most of the Program’s applicants and
beneficiaries are young family-supporters who, at some point, described the Program’s
salaries as the only government that provided unemployment allowances to them.

8.

The Accountability State Authority’s
Role
in Auditing
The “Takaful and Karama” Program

9.

The Accountability State Authority’s role is to audit the “Takaful and Karama”
Program is done as follows:
1- Verifying the implementation of the laws and regulations issued in this regard.
2- Ensuring the application of periodicals and publications issued by the competent
authorities.
3- Reviewing the records and books as well as ensuring that the necessary procedures are
followed when selecting the families benefiting from the Program.
4- Ensuring the validity of the system applied for selection in order to determine the type and
amount of support required for each family (as the amounts differ for each family according
to its number, the children’s age group and each family’s income level).
5- Verifying the correctness of applying the conditions as well as that of granting support to
poor families and other grants that might be requested by those families (a sanitation project lighting - paving roads - establishing schools - service places for poor villages).

10.

Moreover, stakeholders are dealt with at the audit's different stages to
ensure an effective social audit. Among the stakeholders who support
auditors are the following:
-
Parliament committees and public accounts committees.
-
The audited administration/governments.
-
The general public (taxpayers and beneficiaries).
-
Civil society organizations.
-
Policy makers, policy analysts, think tanks and academics.

11.

THANK YOU