Universal Food Subsidy System for Bread and Flour, Egypt

8 Universal Food Subsidy System for Bread and Flour, Egypt 

Implementation. Consumers can purchase any amount of bread and flour at local, private, licensed retail outlets at a fixed price. The subsidy rates are 67 percent for baladi bread, 47 percent for fino bread, and 66 percent for wheat flour. 

Lessons. The current baladi bread subsidy is able to provide benefits to most of the poor (75 percent of those in the bottom quintile), particularly the urban poor (90 percent coverage), helping them maintain a minimum level of consumption, albeit the subsidy is an expensive way to improve the food security and nutrition of the poor. The cost of transferring LE 1.00 to general consumers of baladi bread is LE 1.16, but because 61 percent of the benefit from the baladi bread subsidy goes to the non-needy, the cost of reaching a needy household increases to LE 2.98. 

SOURCES Ahmed and others 2001 World Bank 2005c. 

FOR PROTECTION AND PROMOVON THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE SAFETY NETS 

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