Economic Development, Technological Change and Growth

The purpose of this paper is to track the development process in Egypt since the early sixties. The paper starts with the broad definition of the development and its goals, then it evolves to the stages of development in Egypt since the first five years plan (1960-1965) passing by the open door policy in the 70s , and the hard times of the economy at the 80s and economic reform program at the early 90s until 2004. Furthermore, the paper gives a deep concern to the issue of poverty in Egypt with an emphasis on the impact of the development at different stages on the poor in Egypt. A brief handling of the policies adopted to reduce the burden on the low income strata of the society and why these policies were not so effective. The paper is looking for changing the narrow definition of the poverty which is commonly referred to only as income poverty. Islamic vision of combating poverty is discussed with the emphasis on the fact that Islamic Religion considers work as the basic and sole way to combat poverty. Other Islamic policies are basically targeting the widows, orphans, elderly, and handicapped people. A reference to some examples from the Qur’an and Hadith were given to show to what extent Islam is giving poverty problem the due concern. The role of the informal sector as an avenue that can participate in eradicating poverty and the efforts needed from the government to make it positively involved in the development process and accordingly get rid of the poverty. A policy recommendation is introduced in order to formulate a set of ideas that the student sees them necessary to reach a comprehensive solution to the poverty problem in Egypt.