Egypt’s Housing Minister Moustafa Madbouly said his country will be “shack-free” in one year, announcing a national plan for developing Egypt’s sprawling informal settlements, Egypt’s state news agency MENA reported Tuesday.

In a meeting with Egypt’s Urban Development and Informal Settlements Minister Laila Eskandar, Madbouly announced the plan will develop 77 life-endangering shantytowns.

Eskandar said that the joint plan of the two ministries will be executed in 18 governorates, with the bulk of the work in Cairo and Giza where the majority of the country’s informal settlements are located.

She assured them there will be no forced eviction of residents and that the state will provide housing units for them.

Cairo’s governor Galal El-Saeed said in the meeting that the government and the NGO Maan for Developing Informal Settlements – represented in the meeting by Egyptian actor Mohamed Sobhi – will replace 11,000 housing units in Cairo, and that land has been allocated for housing replacements.

Soad Naguib, head of the Projects Division for Cairo and Upper Egypt at the urban development and informal settlements ministry, told Ahram Online that dwellers in life-endangering slums must be moved to the housing units the state is building, unlike other informal settlements which can be developed where they are located.

Naguib said that Egyptians living in unsafe slums, such as ones built on hillsides prone to landslides, are moved to temporary housing in city suburbs before being provided government housing constructed for the purpose of replacing informal settlements.

Source: Ahram Online