Economic imbalance

Egypt's economy has maintained a rapid development since the beginning of this century, with an annual average economic growth rate of around 6 percent. However, the public are not satisfied, particularly the middle and lower classes, because they think they don't benefit from the economic growth. Despite the economic development, unemployment, poverty and price hikes highlight domestic problems. About 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day. In 2010, the inflation rate reached 10 percent. The official unemployment rate is 9 percent, while actually about 20 percent of the population cannot find a job (30 percent for the youth). As a generation with new ideas, young people like to express their ideas together with the help of the advanced information technology in the modern age. Young people in Egypt networked via Facebook and Twitter, making the Internet the driving force behind the protests.

 The inconsistency between economic growth and the improvement of people's livelihoods is not only happening in Egypt and Tunisia - it's a typical phenomenon in Africa. The paradox that economic growth cannot reduce poverty exists in African countries. Generally speaking, economic development always results in poverty reduction, but this is not the case in Africa. Since the middle of the 1990s, the African economy has kept a moderate growth, but people's livelihood quality remains low. Poverty has not been alleviated, but rather become worse. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the GDP growth rate averaged 5.8 percent, and annual per-capita GDP growth rate was 3.7 percent between 1997-2008. But Africa's poverty rate has remained as high as about 50 percent, and the number of the poor keeps on growing. This is mainly due to the characteristics of Africa's economic growth, such as export demand-driven, investment-led, the low-quality agricultural growth and the low economic structure, which is not conducive for the poor to share the economic growth.

No matter how the political situation develops in Egypt, the hope is that the new Egyptian Government will pay closer attention to the livelihood issues: It should focus on agricultural growth and rural development; it should speed up the industrialization process and provide more job opportunities for the poor; it should improve human resources training and enhance people's ability to make use of economic opportunities; and it should pay more attention to young people's employment problems and provide them with more opportunities. Of course, people's livelihood is just one side of the coin. On the other hand, the government should also promote political reform, so that people from all walks of life can find their right places in the political system.