@FAO-EG one of the panels at the workshop

Cairo, Egypt, 24 May 2017  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) inaugurated a capacity building workshop on “Establishing a National Dialogue Platform for Cooperatives” which took place in Cairo recently with the purpose of demonstrating to members of agricultural cooperatives and heads of cooperative directorates from almost all governorates in Egypt, the concepts and tools needed for effective engagement in dialogues that lead to strengthened partnerships between government representatives and members of agricultural cooperatives.

The workshop was organized within the framework of FAO’s Technical Cooperation Project “Support to the Reform of the Law Governing Agricultural Cooperatives in Egypt” which aims to improve the cooperative system so as to support small-scale and family farming.

In his opening speech to the workshop, Hussein Gadain, FAO Representative in Egypt, stated “in this workshop, participants will conceptualize the institutional framework of the National Dialogue Platform on Cooperatives, and we hope that the Egyptian government adopts this Platform and takes the needed steps to support its establishment, functionality and sustainability.” He also added “moreover, representatives from different cooperatives who traveled to Kenya, will share their experience and the knowledge they gained about the cooperative system in the country so as to adopt what fits the Egyptian context.”

On his side, Mohamed Abdelaal, the Project’s Consultant said: “we held so far four regional workshops, including the inception event that gathered project stakeholders from Cairo, Upper Egypt, and the Delta regions in which we were able to set the outline for a plan of work to develop the agricultural cooperatives sector in Egypt. In this 5^th workshop, we succeeded in setting the pillars of a “National Dialogue Platform for Cooperatives” that includes government representatives and members of agricultural cooperatives.” He explained that in this workshop, the idea of a National Dialogue Platform was introduced via several simulation exercises that demonstrated the concept of negotiation and participants succeeded in forming a committee composed of government representatives, members from cooperatives, and legal experts who will convene to discuss the by-laws, functioning, sustainability, and financial viability of the Platform and to produce a document which will be presented to related government entities and the Central Agricultural Cooperatives Union (CACUN) to get their consensus.