The Right to Adequate Food and Subsidy Programs: Egypt’s Bread Subsidy and Social Justice

In August 2021, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared his intention to raise the price of subsidized bread in Egypt and establish a new program to deliver school meals to children. As a result of his speech, a heated debate emerged regarding the importance of bread as an integral part of the country's food subsidy program: How can food subsidy reform (ie, increasing the price of bread) solve the nutrition problems of children? How can the right to adequate food be respected within the resources available to the state? More importantly, how can states navigate those urgent needs amidst consecutive public and international emergencies? This policy report aims to address these questions by first providing an outline of the domestic and international legal and policy framework of the right to adequate food, then a brief history and explanation of the bread subsidy system in Egypt, previous state reforms, and finally, the challenges ahead and proposed recommendations for the bread subsidy scheme towards the realization of social justice in terms of access to affordable food for Egyptians