Institutional Reform and Governance as a Pillar for Building the New Egyptian State

The new institutional economics emphasizes the importance of having strong and effective institutions to achieve growth and development, and to support structural changes in any country. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the development of Egypt's performance in governance indicators and its impact on economic growth and present the experiences of some countries in institutional reform and governance, to draw lessons learned and present proposals for institutional performance development in Egypt, which would accelerate the process of achieving sustainable development goals towards building the new Egyptian state. The paper employs the descriptive analysis methodology and case study in analyzing Egypt's institutional and economic growth performance, presenting the experiences of similar countries in this regard, and drawing lessons learned. The paper started by presenting the findings of literature on the relationship between institutional reform or good governance, and growth and sustainable development. This was followed by an analysis of Egypt’s performance in the well-known indicators of institutional quality and governance and the development of economic growth from 2010 to 2022 (or to the most recent year). Furthermore, the study highlights successful country experiences in the field of institutional reform in countries similar to Egypt in their institutional, political, and economic characteristics, with the aim of identifying the most prominent areas of reform in which they succeeded. Finally, it presents the reform efforts undertaken by Egypt during the past decade, the main challenges facing Egypt in this regard, and the proposed policies to overcome them. This study confirms the great importance of the institutional reform process, despite being a complex process that requires a lot of time and resources to achieve comprehensive reforms in all the desired areas. Besides, the paper concludes with the need to reach a unified strategic vision for institutional reform to ensure continuity, inclusiveness, and balance during the preparation and implementation stages, and to achieve consistency and cooperation between the various institutional reform areas.