أخبار

Major General Mahmoud Sharawi, Minister of Local Development, started his tour of Luxor Governorate by visiting the village of Al-Baghdadi, which is affiliated with the Center and City of Al-Bayadya.

Sharawi, Counsellor Mustafa Alham, Governor of Luxor and Mongstab Hayley, Resident Representative and Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) office in Cairo, and a number of the ministry and WFP leadership are also inspected project activities to build resilience of food security systems implemented in the village, , Where the Minister of Local Development heard from farmers the details of the climate change project in Al-Baghdadi, which is one of the projects of the United Nations World Food Program to support more than 120,000 people through interventions implemented to confront climate change and awareness, Al-Baghdadi village is one of 64 rural communities for which the program provides support to smallholder farmers in Upper Egypt and helps them reduce and increase the losses of their crops by harvesting land, improving farming and irrigation techniques, using clean energy to pump water, using better varieties of seeds and using machines.

The Minister of Local Development and the Governor of Luxor have also undertaken a number of projects in the village of Al-Baghdadi, foremost of which are the lining of branches, improved cultivation techniques, collection of land holdings and a solar power plant.

Major General Mahmoud Sharawi praised the project to support smallholder farmers' communities in the village of Al-Baghdadi, which the program is implementing in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture in the governorates of Aswan, Luxor, Suhag, Quena and Assiut. The project will be expanded to about 60 new villages in the governorates of Upper Egypt during the current period.

Sharawi then visited the headquarters of the Omar Bin Khattab Charitable Association in the village, where he listened to the efforts of the World Food Programme to support the association in assisting and supporting families, providing social and community welfare for them and providing loans to women to finance economic activities such as animal and poultry production and small agricultural projects such as the drying of tomatoes, which the programme hopes will be linked to the successful and distinguished initiatives of the Ministry of Local Development in the local development program in Upper Egypt and the presidential initiative for a decent life.

The Minister of Local Development and the Governor heard the experiences of a number of women in the village in setting up small and medium enterprises and directed Sharawi to support the women in the village to expand their current projects as part of the Ministry's efforts to empower women economically and provide social welfare.

The Minister of Local Development also directed the opening of outlets at the Al-Bayadya Center to sell women's products from the village, to help them in marketing, to increase income and to expand their economic activities. Counselor Mustafa Alham indicated that a meeting will be held with the women in the village with the officials of small enterprises in the governorate and to provide them with outlets free of charge to help in marketing these products.

Speaking to the village women and the people, Sharawi said, "We are coming to serve you. Our goal is to help you improve your projects.”

The Minister of Local Development directed to provide soft loans to the Village Women from the Local Development Fund .

On his part, Councilor Mustafa Alham, Governor of Luxor, explained that the climate change project comes within the framework of Luxor Governorate's plan to develop the agricultural system because of its great importance in the process of development and progress, in accordance with the state's vision for achieving agricultural development within the 2030 Sustainable Development Plan. The project includes 4 branches in the governorate centers, including Al-Bayadya Center "Al-Habil-Al-Baghdadi", Al-Toud Center "Al-Toud Al-Sharq-Al-Udaysat Bahri" and Arment Center "Arment Al-Hit - Al-Mahamid Bahri" and Isna Center "Al-Nakhat Qebli - Comir - Thomas 3".

Noting that Al-Baghdadi is one of 64 villages in Upper Egypt supported by the joint project which is implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the World Food Programme, this successful partnership between the World Food Programme and the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation is helping small farmers to cope with climate shocks and encouraging the use of water-saving techniques and other innovative solutions.

For its part, Mongstab Hayley, Resident Representative and Director of the Cairo office of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), expressed pride in cooperating with the Egyptian Government and the Ministry of Local Development in various current areas of cooperation.

Mongstab Hayley stressed the importance of the role played by the Ministry of Local Development to support the implementation of World Food Program projects in the Egyptian governorates, especially in the framework of coordination between the program and the Ministry of International Cooperation during the current period to develop a number of villages in the governorates. Hailey praised the Ministry's role in improving the standard of living of citizens in the governorates, stressing that partnership with the Ministry of Local Development is very important for the program during the current period.

The Director of the Office of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) presented an update on the projects currently being implemented in the governorates, namely programmes to empower women and youth, support small farmers and increase agricultural output through consolidation of tenure and technical support to them, noting that the programme was working with all family groups in the villages to help create jobs and improve their living conditions.

Hayley indicated that the programme is to implement projects in 60 new villages in 5 governorates in Upper Aswan, Luxor, Suhag, Quena and Assiut with funding from the Dutch Government and Egyptian stakeholders through support for farmers to consolidate smallholdings and use modern irrigation methods after the success of the project in 60 villages at the first stage and the desire of farmers to have a large number of villages to benefit from it according to the criteria set by the Ministry of Agriculture and in coordination with the Ministry of Local Development.

Translated by :Hanaa Mohamed