In the broadest sense, the process of development involves improving the quality of human life. Although most people support the idea of improving human lives, the concept of development is notoriously difficult to define. In the poorer countries of the world, development generally requires increasing incomes. But it also involves other things, such as raising standards of health and nutrition, improving access to education, reducing poverty, and increasing the equality of resources. How is it possible to incorporate these, and other notions, into a workable definition of development that can be used to evaluate the recent record of development in Egypt?