Egypt

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This map does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or the delimitation of any frontiers.

Egypt has made significant progress over the past decade toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, with substantial gains in child survival rates, school enrolment, immunization coverage and access to safe drinking water. Poverty remains a problem, especially in Upper Egypt, impacting the health, education and well-being of that region’s children.

Issues facing children in Egypt

• Nationwide, net primary school enrolment exceeds 94 per cent, although impoverished regions such as Upper Egypt lag behind. 
• HIV/AIDS prevalence remains low in Egypt, but there is no comprehensive national strategy in place to contain the virus. 
• Some 98 per cent of the population has access to clean water, but 42 per cent of rural households lack hygienic sanitation systems.  
• Studies show that many Egyptian girls and women have suffered from some form of female genital mutilation/cutting. 
• There is a need for additional services to protect children from violence, abuse and neglect.

Activities and results for children

• In February 2006, Egypt was declared polio free, with no reported cases of the disease since 2004.
• UNICEF procured 25,000 ‘clean delivery kits’ to improve maternal care in high-risk districts. Ten thousand medical personnel were trained in safe childbirth practices.
• A three-year School Sanitation Project sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Education, USAID and UNICEF is working with communities and government to provide clean water, better sanitation and hygiene education to more than 300 primary schools in Upper Egypt.
• To eliminate iodine deficiency disorders, UNICEF procured supplies and testing kits for monitoring the iodine content of salt. In mid-2006, UNICEF Egypt and USAID supported a four-day workshop in Fayoum for training health and food inspectors in the production, monitoring, control and marketing of iodized salt.
• UNICEF supports two new centres offering confidential counselling and testing for HIV/AIDS. In late 2006 the country joined UNICEF’s ‘Unite for Children  Unite Against AIDS’ campaign.
• A UNICEF-backed awareness-raising campaign is educating local populations about avian influenza. Flip charts and other simple tools are used to demonstrate hygienic precautions against human infection, the safe way to prepare poultry for the table and how to dispose of dead birds.
• The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population is actively campaigning to end female genital mutilation, raising awareness at the community level and training doctors and nurses to convince families to abandon the practice. UNICEF is supporting activities of the Female Genital Mutilation–Free Village programme, encouraging villages in Egypt’s southern region to make public declarations against the practice.
• In March 2007, Radio Cairo and UNICEF Egypt launched ‘Sizzling Sounds’, a radio programme with regular segments devoted to the cause of street children.
• Supported by UNICEF, the Egyptian Government has drafted a national strategy to combat child labour.
• In 2005, UNICEF supported the Hope Village Society in establishing Egypt’s first-ever shelter for pregnant girls and young mothers living on the streets.