HRW Submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on Egypt

We write in advance of the 79th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the “Committee”) and its adoption of the list of issues of Egypt. This submission focuses on rising costs of living, poverty, education, health care, tax, and military intervention in the civilian economy. We hope this will inform the Committee’s preparation of its list of issues to seek further clarity on Egypt’s compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Rising Costs of Living, Rising Poverty, and Access to Essential Public Services (articles 11 and 13)

Since 2014, under the government of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Egypt’s recurring economic crises have had devastating effects on people’s access to economic, social and cultural rights, while authorities continue to thrive off a lack of accountability and public scrutiny. In the span of ten years, the country’s foreign debt has reached unprecedented levels, exceeding US$168 billion by end of 2023,[1] which has come at the expense of human rights.[2] Most recently, in February 2024, international donors – including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the United Kingdom, and the European Union – have provided or promised roughly US$57 billion in grants and loans.[3] Some policy changes undertaken in the context of various IMF programs have been detrimental to rights, such as the removal of food and fuel subsidies without sufficient measures to scale up the country’s social security system and mitigate the harm[4]. Even according to official numbers, the two existing cash assistance programs, Takaful and Karama, cover only about five million families (22 million people), less than a third of those living in or near poverty.[5]

The value of such assistance has become meager (average of 750 to 1,000 pounds or $15 to $20 per month) in the face of very high inflation rates and some of it is conditional rather than universal.[6]

The national poverty rate reached almost 30 percent in 2019, after which the government reportedly pressured statistics authorities to obscure poverty statistics.[7] In August 2025, Mada Masr, an independent news website, reported that unpublished official data it obtained showed that poverty had reached 34 percent in 2021-2022, the highest recorded rate in the government’s Income, Expenditure, and Consumption Survey since its inception in 1999.[8] The IMF estimated the rate of inflation—measured as the percent change in the average consumer price index—to be 20.4 percent in October 2025.[9] Skyrocketing prices of food and basic commodities put the rights of millions of Egyptians in jeopardy.

Instead of properly addressing the country’s recurring economic crises, however, the government’s current economic approach prioritizes lavish, opaque infrastructure projects and high levels of military spending.[10] President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's government has pursued massive projects that often lack feasibility studies while the military has expanded its reach over consumer markets, as it benefits from a lack of civilian oversight or scrutiny, leading to corruption and the squandering of public resources.[11]

Human Rights Watch recommends the Committee ask the government of Egypt to describe how it will fulfill its rights obligations, including by:

• Prioritizing public spending on programs to help increase access to food, electricity and other essential commodities.
• Expanding social security to a universal system to include millions of citizens who remain uncovered and to increase benefits to levels that are adequate to account for the rising cost of living and high inflation rates.[12]
• Taking steps to decrease the role of the military in the economy while making it more transparent and accountable to the public. This includes, at a minimum:
  • Adhering to certain provisions included in the IMF’s 2023 agreement with Egypt, such as those requiring all state-owned enterprises to submit and share publicly financial accounts biannually to the Finance Ministry.
  • Publishing all public procurement contracts exceeding 20 million pounds—per the 2023 agreement with the IMF—and commit to include beneficial ownership information for companies awarded programs, which the government committed to in an earlier IMF agreement but not in 2023.[13]
  • Ensuring that all business operations that involve the provision of vital services such as food are only run and managed by democratically elected, accountable institutions.

Human Rights Watch also recommends the Committee ask the government of Egypt:

• Why has the government obscured official data related to the Income, Expenditure, and Consumption Survey since 2019? What measures are taken to ensure that such surveys are carried out independently from political interference?
• What measures were taken to enhance financial transparency of military businesses and allow independent media reporting on them?
• What measures were taken to make public all feasibility and due diligence studies related to large infrastructure projects, particularly those run or managed by military entities?

Access to Education

Egypt’s reduction in education spending in recent years, along with a failure to fully guarantee free primary and secondary education for every child, severely undermines the right to education.[14]

In fiscal year 2024/25, the government proposed, and parliament approved, an education budget of 295 billion Egyptian pounds (about US$6 billion),[15] equivalent to 1.7 percent of Egypt’s GDP of 17 trillion pounds (about $380 billion).[16] It represents 5.3 percent of total government expenditure of 5.5 trillion pounds (about $110 billion).[17]

While Egypt’s spending on education has nominally increased, it is falling over time in real terms and as a percentage of GDP and expenditure. Human Rights Watch analysis of the state budget found that education spending declined from 2.3 percent of GDP in 2020/2021 (6.7 percent of government expenditure) to 1.7 percent of GDP (5.3 percent of government expenditure) in the 2024/25 budget, the lowest in five years. It has declined significantly from 3.9 percent of GDP in 2014/15, the first year of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s rule. Human Rights Watch analysis also found that Egypt’s spending on education has decreased 24 percent since 2014 in real terms, meaning adjusted for inflation.[18]

Egypt’s education spending is well below constitutional mandates and international benchmarks. Egypt’s 2014 constitution committed the state to spending no less than 6 percent of GDP on education, including 4 percent on pre-university education. It set a target of fiscal year 2016/17 to achieve this while mandating that spending should gradually increase until reaching “global rates.” Prevailing international benchmarks recommend allocating 4 to 6 percent of GDP and at least 15 to 20 percent of public expenditure for education.[19]

The government has failed to meet its obligations under the constitution, the 1981 education law, and international human rights law to provide free education. Public schools charge fees of some 210-520 Egyptian pounds (about US$5-10) per year, waived for some low-income students.[20] Rights groups criticized a set of amendments to the country’s education law approved by the House of Representatives in July 2025, citing the increasing of registration and exam retake fees as one of several provisions which risk limiting access to education for those who cannot afford the extra costs.[21]

In 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 27 refugees and reviewed Egyptian laws and regulations, finding a variety of barriers keeping tens of thousands of refugee and asylum-seeking children out of school.[22] Such barriers include fees for placement tests and school uniforms as well as a requirement that families provide proof of residency in order to enroll in public schools, which is impossible for many of those who are refugees or seeking asylum. As of October 2025, Egypt has more than one million refugees and asylum-seekers, with the vast majority coming from Sudan.[23] More than 326,000 are school-age children between 5 and 18.[24] While the new Law Regarding the Asylum of Foreigners No. 164 of 2024 (hereafter ”the new asylum law”) that was signed into law in December 2024 gave refugee children the right to “essential education” - meaning primary and lower secondary education— the law failed to guarantee this right to asylum seekers.[25]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the government of Egypt to describe how it will fulfill its rights obligations, including by:

• Guaranteeing free and compulsory primary education to all children in Egypt, regardless of status, and take steps to utilize the maximum of its available resources to provide universal free secondary education.
• Increasing education spending to constitutionally-mandated levels of at least 6 percent of GDP, at a minimum, and aim to achieve widely accepted international spending benchmarks of 15 to 20 percent of public expenditure for education.
• Amending the 1981 education law, which guarantees the right to free education for “citizens,” to include all children in the country, including refugees and asylum-seekers.
• Taking steps to address bullying, racism, and other forms of discrimination and stigma in schools, and ensure that families have a mechanism by which to report incidents to school authorities without prejudice.
• Ensuring that all children have access to psychosocial support and counseling.

Human Rights Watch also recommends that the Committee ask the government of Egypt:

• Why has the government reduced the real spending on education in recent years? What measures did the government considering before resorting to retrogressive action?
• Why does the government require fees for public education?
• Given that the new asylum law includes the right to access education for refugee children, what measures have been taken to facilitate and ensure that refugee children have access to education given the documented bureaucratic hurdles they have faced in the past?
• Will the government of Egypt consider amending the new asylum law to include in the right to education children whose families are awaiting a final decision on their asylum claims?
• Will the government of Egypt consider amending the new asylum law to include the right to access upper secondary education so that refugee children have continued access to secondary education?

Public Health Care Spending (article 12)

Recent Human Rights Watch analysis of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest Global Health Expenditure Database shows that[26]in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, Egypt spent roughly 1.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public health care (up from 1.3 percent in 2019) or about 7.2 percent of its national budget (up from 4.8% in 2019).[27] While both of these metrics improved, they still fall short of the well-accepted international spending benchmarks of 5 percent of GDP or 15 percent of national budget.

Egypt’s public health care system is also overly reliant on household out-of-pocket payments, which account for nearly 54 percent of the country’s total healthcare spending.[28] WHO estimates that this share should be no more than 15 to 20 percent in order to mitigate the risk that households will need to spend more than 40 percent of their income on health care after paying for necessities such as food and housing—a level that WHO considers to be “catastrophic health spending.”[29]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the government of Egypt to describe how it will fulfill its rights obligations, including by:

• Increasing spending on education and health to meet constitutionally mandated levels, at a minimum.[30]
• Taking all necessary steps to avoid further decreases in public health care funding. Ensure that any such decreases are subject to human rights impact assessments and are fully justified as outlined by the Committee in its General Comment No. 3 on the nature of states parties’ obligations under the ICESCR.[31]
• Committing and take steps necessary to reduce the share of healthcare expenditures that come from out-of-pocket payments.
• Making public commitments to achieving levels of public health spending which are, at a minimum, 5 percent of GDP or 15 percent of the national budget.

UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (article 2)

Human Rights Watch notes with appreciation the support Egypt has shown thus far to the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, including the fact that the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is chaired by the country’s Deputy Minister of Finance for Tax Policy and Reforms.[32]

According to Tax Justice Network (TJN), Egypt loses more than $438 million each year to global tax abuse, equivalent to 7.3 percent of the country’s education budget in 2024/25.[33] More than half of this lost revenue is due to “global tax abuse committed by multinational corporations.”[34]

Equitable global tax rules are crucial to supporting human rights economies that align domestic and international economic decision-making with the realization and fulfilment of rights. The ICESCR obliges states parties to use the maximum of their available resources to fulfill rights, including through international cooperation.[35] Tax cooperation helps make it possible for government to raise adequate revenues while reducing inequality within and between countries. The Committee has consistently urged states parties to align their tax systems with their human rights obligations and has emphasized the importance of strengthening international cooperation.[36]

Recommendations

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the government of Egypt to describe how it will fulfill its rights obligations, including by:

• Continuing to support and engage in the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation negotiating process.
• In line with the Committee’s previous recommendations to states parties,[37] taking the necessary steps to examine the impact of its taxation policies on reducing poverty and inequality, and make any adjustments necessary to ensure its policies are redistributive and increase the resources available for the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights.

Military Businesses

The government’s economic approach prioritizes lavish and opaque spending on military projects, all while prices skyrocket and poverty increases.[38] The military’s increasing and unaccountable role in Egypt’s economy is a major contributing factor in the country’s chronic economic woes.[39]

Egypt’s military has emerged since the 1980s as a significant and growing economic actor, spanning several civilian sectors as diverse as infrastructure, imports, chemical manufacturing, and production of food and household appliances.[40] But since the military takeover in 2013, the expansion of military businesses has been unprecedented. Although the military economy “captures a disproportionate share of public revenues,” it operates in near total secrecy, most likely masking “inefficiencies and hidden losses.”[41] The military most likely uses thousands of young men as unpaid labor through the country’s mandatory conscription system, according to over a dozen interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with former conscripts and experts.[42]

The financial dealings of businesses owned by military agencies, which mainly produce civilian goods, are completely shrouded from public view, making them ripe for corruption and undermining civilian oversight of the funding for Egypt’s military, which is responsible for serious abuses. Transparency and accountability in military-owned businesses are key to addressing corruption and mismanagement, which squander precious public resources that could otherwise be invested in securing rights such as health care, housing, food, and social protection.[43]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the government of Egypt to describe how it will fulfill its rights obligations, including by:

• Disclosing financial information about military-owned businesses.
• Bringing all military businesses under strict civilian government supervision.
• Publishing feasibility and due diligence studies related to military projects, particularly large infrastructure and construction projects.
• Allowing independent reporting in military project sites.

Ending military prosecutions of civilians working in civilian businesses run by the military.