Egypt must target neediest in Food Subsidy Reforms: WFP

Egypt's reform of its subsidized food system must do more to help the neediest if the government is to begin reducing "huge pockets of poverty", the top World Food Programme official in the country said on Monday.

Failure to tackle those issues could revive popular discontent that has toppled two presidents in three years.

But reform will be a tall order in the Arab world's most populous country, where some 68 million - about 75 percent of Egyptians - have ration cards that entitle them to such subsidizes, and where, according to U.N. data, four million of the poorest Egyptians have fallen through the system's cracks.

Bread in particular is a politically explosive issue in Egypt, where for decades millions have depended on subsidized loaves that sell for less than a seventh of the real cost.

"(The government) needs to do more on the targeting and they are very conscious of the fact, but first I think they want to strengthen the systems and then (work) on targeting," WFP's Egypt representative and country director, Lubna Alamen, told Reuters in an interview.