The FAO representative in Egypt, Mr. Moujahed Achouri, and the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Eng. Mohamed Reda Ismail, signed on Monday 28th of May a new Italian funded project for the amount of 3.000.000 USD aiming at “Improving household food and nutrition security in Egypt by targeting women and youth”.

The signature ceremony was held at the Ministry’s premises and was also attended by the Ambassador of Italy to Egypt, H.E. Claudio Pacifico, who highlighted in his intervention the importance of having FAO’s expertise and technical assistance for the implementation of such interventions.

The project will be implemented in 5 governorates in Upper Egypt and will address the economic, socio-cultural, and behavioral underlying causes of household food insecurity and malnutrition through the creation of a pilot integrated model. Good practices and lessons learnt from the model will be monitored to be integrated into policies and scaled up at national level.

In addition to homestead fruit and vegetable production, small livestock rearing and food based income generating activities, the project will develop a community based nutrition education program to address the nutritional problems of children and adolescents through local problem diagnosis and problem solving.

A revolving fund will be operated to promote the food-based initiatives of the beneficiaries, mainly women and youth, who will be trained not only on environmental friendly and bio-secure ways of producing food and rearing animals, but also on an array of skills that will equip them with the necessary knowledge to run small enterprises. This training will be delivered through the women groups targeted by the project and through Junior Farmers Field and Life Schools (JFFLS).

During the Ceremony, the Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation acknowledged the long-standing partnership with FAO which has contributed to the alleviation of poverty and food insecurity in Egypt through several development programs implemented “in” and “for” the poorest villages of the country.

“The program is part of FAO’s commitment in the Region to reduce and mitigate the effect of the concomitant financial and political shocks which are heavily affecting food and nutrition security at a household level. I am confident this will pave the way for further collaboration in the field with our development partners” added Mr. Achouri acknowledging, at his turn, the strategic contribution of the Italian Government to food nutrition and food security and the fruitful collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture.