Recent Activities

Under The Ministry of Local Development's auspices, WFP collaborated with e-finance to develop the Ayady Misr (Hands of Egypt) as an E-commerce & E-marketing platform to support rural women entrepreneurship. The platform enables sustainable livelihoods for households by connecting the beneficiaries to a wider customer market while also helping them maintain a standard level of handcrafts quality. This in return translates into higher sales and better income for livelihood beneficiaries and other rural Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). 

As the platform has garnered more awareness, it has received presidential support as well as endorsement from other national institutions and NGOs. In November 2021, a technical workshop was hosted to introduce and educate persons of interest such as users, potential investors, government representatives, on the technicalities of the platform either as a seller, customer, or advisor. The workshop also raised general awareness of digitalization and the importance and benefits of ecommerce.

It is a comprehensive rural development program that aims to ensure quality of life by alleviating, multidimensional poverty. The program aims to expand the Social Safety Net (SSN) to include the neediest villages with a focus on meeting their social and economic needs.

Prior to the implementation of the "Decent Life" initiative, the national poverty rate reached 32.5% in 2017/2018 and is mainly concentrated in rural communities, especially in Upper Egypt. Therefore, the government decided to expand the scope of the social protection and poverty reduction program and launch the first phase of a decent life in January 2019 to target the 375 poorest villages, adding that in 2019/2020 the poverty rate decreased to 29.7%, and compared to 2017/2018 and 2019/ 2020, poverty in rural villages decreased by 3.6% and this indicates the significant positive impact of decent life interventions on poverty, especially in Upper Egypt.

In 2021, the second and third phases of the Decent Life Initiative were launched, targeting all rural villages (4,584 villages) with a budget of more than 800 billion LE.

Interventions within the framework of a decent life, also focused on job creation, which has helped mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 on employment during the pandemic, in addition to: providing all infrastructure, facilities, health and educational services, sports, and cultural activities.

WFP supports the Egyptian government through implementing its activities within the “Decent Life” framework and towards achieving EGYPT-VISION 2030.

The Egyptian government and WFP collaborate to upscale rural development and improve the lives and livelihoods of Egyptians in the poorest 1500 villages. One of the methods of ensuring this is through the smart schools or TDS “The digital School” initiative which transforms a community school into an integrated centre of knowledge for all members of the community.

WFP in partnership with the Ministry of Education, have transformed 450 community schools into smart schools with internet connectivity, educational and technological tools. WFP further collaborated with the MBRGI Foundation and the TDS initiative to rollout a custom tailored version of TDS for community education on top of our ICT infrastructure, taking into consideration all the needed change management and training activities

The smart schools concept is an innovative boost to the wider vision to enhance access to education and fight child labour in Egypt’s rural communities. Smart schools vastly improve access to education through remote learning and an online integrated learning management system. Thanks to internet connectivity and technological tools such as tablets and smart tv’s, children can be educated from the comfort of their communities. Moreover these tools entice children and further boosts their morale to attend school.