Title Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction under ...

definitions divide the poor into three groups 12 . From 1990/91 to 1995/96, the non-poor inurban and rural areas decreased from 61% to 55% and from 60.8% to 48.8%, respectively.This implies that the increase in the number of poor and moderate poor was from 18.7% to22.5% in urban areas and from 10.6% to 26.9% in rural areas. In the year of 1995/96, theultra poor made up 7.4% of the population in all of Egypt, 7.7% in urban areas, and 7.1% inrural areas.During the period from 1995/96 to 1999/2000, the Egyptian economy recorded increasedgrowth rates of 6% per year on average. In 1999/2000, the poor population fell from 13.7million people to around 11.0 million people representing 16.7% of the entire population.This period is characterized by fiscal expansion and the appreciation of the Egyptianpound above mentioned. The appreciation of the Egyptian pound (the Dutch diseasephenomenon) benefited the tourism and the manufacturing sectors that were inwardoriented and protected from external competition. Afterwards, fiscal and monetary policesbecame inconsistent under the large government expenditures on mega-projects aiming topromote growth in the regions. In addition, internal security problems and the unfavorableexternal environment had an adverse effect on the Egyptian economy in the latter half ofthe 1990s. These external factors included the economic crises in emerging markets in EastAsia and Russia.With the instability in the Middle East caused by the aftermath of September 11, 2001in estimating poverty line.12 These are the moderate (or mild) poor, the poor, and the ultra (or extreme) poor. Theborder between the non-poor and the moderately poor is the upper poverty line. Thatbetween the moderate poor and the poor is the lower poverty line. The ultra poor live belowthe food poverty line.10