The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is organizing in cooperation with the Food Security Information Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (FSIC) a “Stakeholders Food Security Information Center (FSIC) Workshop” from 9:00 a.m. at Marriot Hotel (Aida Hall)., Zamalek, in Cairo on Wednesday July 15th, 2009. The participants of the workshop include officials from different ministries, international organizations, private sector and non-governmental organizations.

On the national level, Egypt is considered a food secured country, as hunger does not spread in it, as in the case of a number of developing countries. Yet, on the family level, poverty and food insecurity still represent a serious challenge for the government despite the great support of the programmes for the poor. The latest World Bank report on poverty in Egypt has indicated that the percentage of the poor, who are living in poor conditions in terms of percentage of the population has dropped from 23.4 to 18.9 percentage points between February 2005 – February 2008 following a strong growth in the  GDP. This is despite the rise in the percentage of those living under the food poverty line (abject poverty) has risen from 5.4 to 6.4 percentage points during the same period. It was observed in 2008 that the problems of food insecurity and malnutrition in the country has worsened with the rise of the food prices, in addition to the global financial crisis, which has negatively affected the revenues of (Suez Canal, tourism and energy) and also the contribution of direct foreign investments to the economic growth and food security during the same previously mentioned period.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together all stakeholders of food security in Egypt to build a national information program in order to provide decision makers with reliable information for alleviating food insecurity in the country. This calls for an active role of every institution, to make the system efficient and successful in terms of providing timely and reliable information on the poverty and food insecurity situation in the country. The participating institutions will collaborate in the work of the FSIC in providing relevant data and information which will be used to indicate the poverty level and the magnitude of food insecurity situation in the country. In order to be useful for indicating the location and causes of food insecurity, the data and information to be compiled will be disaggregated by governorates, localities, as well as by source of household income.