Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the poverty situation and its determinants/causes in the Egyptian case and how the government tried through different policies and programs to alleviate the poverty and its side effects on the whole economy. We examined the feasibility of government programs and policies to eliminate the poverty across the past five years. This study provides insightful findings and, hence, contributes to the area of poverty in Egypt. The paper is organized as follows; we review the global review of poverty, then discuss the current situation of poverty in Egypt and investigate the government efforts in poverty reduction, finally provide some policy implications.
Design/methodology/approach- The study employs the case study approach and analytical description to analyze the historical trend of poverty in Egypt and how the Egyptian government changes its policies to alleviate poverty.
Findings - Targeting poverty reduction in Egypt requires intervention by increasing public spending allocated on social services as it appears to be the most influential type of government expenditure on poverty alleviation in Egypt.