The Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Sahar Nasr ended her visit to Upper Egypt, with Qena being the last stop, in presence of the Governor of Qena Lieutenant Abdelhameed Elhagan.
The Minister visited Qena Industrial School for Girls which falls under the project financed by the UN Industrial Development Organisation UNIDO, which aims to empower students at technical secondary schools to provide them with required skills to find suitable jobs. Dr. Nasr actually met with several students and listened to their explanation of the most significant projects in the field of entrepreneurship.
She visited several exhibitions for handmade products and commended the quality of the products, while noting that MOIC worked on supporting technical schools.
Composite classes under the project to improve access to education and fight child labour were also visited. The project is financed with EUR 60 million by the European Union and implemented by the World Food Program WFP in 16 governorates which suffer most food scarcity problems. This includes providing 100,000 children that actually fall, or are prone to fall, under child labour with fast meals and providing 400,000 family members with a monthly ration as an incentive to send children, especially girls to school. The Minister stressed that she asked the EU to maximise the school feeding programme to cover most lagging regions in different governorates rather than restricting the programme to only governorates.
Dr. Nasr also visited the Family Clinic established among the project to establish 78 healthcare units in 23 governorates financed by the UAE with a grant worth USD 26 million with a view to raising standards of living. She explained that this project contributed to providing healthcare services to the residents of rural areas, provided care for motherhood and childhood, vaccines and other services that save citizens the time and money of having to go to public or central hospitals. The project actually provides healthcare services to over 780,000 citizens and lessens the sufferings of those living in lagging regions. On the other hand, the project helped create 6000 job opportunities during the construction phase in addition to 1000 permanent jobs.
Afterwards, the Minister witnessed the signing of an agreement for financing the rural women support project for which MOIC had secured funds worth EGP 3 million from IFAD in favour of SFD. The agreement was signed by Head of SFD’s Micro-Finance Sector Ms. Nevein Badr-Eldin and Chairman of the Rural Women’s Development Association in Qena Mr. Wafeek Azab. Dr. Nasr explained that the purpose of the project was to finance micro enterprises in favour of rural women and that it would be implemented over 57 months, while noting that around 600 women are expected to benefit from the project.
The girls recruitment project was inspected by the Minister as well. It falls under the mother and child healthcare initiatives financed with EGP 1 million by SFD which aims to provide job opportunities to girls among the awareness raising and house visit programmes to contribute to increasing access to mother and child care services.
Dr. Nasr pointed out that the project contributed to the provision of 362 job opportunities, the literacy of 84 women at the age of pregnancy, besides familiarizing 6000 families about the concept of mother and child care.
The replacement and renovation of the sewerage exhaust line, falling under the debt swap programme with Germany, was visited as well by the Minister and the Governor of Qena. At the close of her visit, Dr. Nasr stressed that she decided maximising the school feeding programme to accelerate with Egypt’s development partners so as to lessen child labour, noting that taking social dimensions into consideration was essential, especially in lagging regions, in parallel with economic reform.
She pointed out that the government was set out to achieve sustainable development in lagging regions, while noting that it also worked on supporting middle classes.
She further mentioned that she requested that WB maximise Takaful and Karam Proram worth USD 400 million in order to serve 1.5 million families instead of 750,000.
Finally, Dr. Nasr explained that the funds worth USD 500 million provided by WB for the development of Upper Egypt will be mainly allocated to setting up industrial zones, noting that she requested the sum of USD 200 million to support intensive labour and a similar amount to support SMEs.
