São Paulo – The World Bank’s regional vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, Inger Andersen, paid a two-day visit to Egypt and pledged the organization’s support to the basic needs of the country’s population. The support will be in the form of an ongoing commitment to job creation, reforming the energy sector and creating safety networks in education, transportation, water and sanitation, agriculture and irrigation. The information was released by the World Bank last Wednesday (13th).
According to a World Bank press release, the aid will include improvements in economic management and restoration of a healthy macroeconomic structure; job creation; and promotion of population inclusion, ensuring better access to quality services by various groups, especially the youngest, the poorest, women, and those who live in poor areas of the country.
“Egypt has the potential to become a powerful emerging economy and the World Bank group is committed to supporting the country’s priorities to reduce poverty and achieve shared prosperity,” said Andersen, according to the release nota “The current projects are designed to create jobs for unskilled and semi-skilled labour and improve access to sustainable sanitation services particularly in rural upper Egypt (in the south of the country),” he said.
Egypt and the World Bank have recently signed an agreement for a power plant project in Helwan, a city south of Cairo. The gas-fuelled unit will account for 10% of the new power generation capacity to be added by 2018. According to the World Bank, this project is key to a more reliable power supply in the country. Another World Bank project in Egypt is the Emergency Labour Intensive Investment Project, designed to create 250,000 jobs via investment in public works at vulnerable communities.
“We have been sharing experiences from different regions in the world where countries faced similar challenges. Sharing lessons learnt in implementation further improves the effectiveness of the projects,” said Hartwig Schafer, World Bank director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti.
The World Bank’s Egypt portfolio is its largest in the Middle East and North Africa, comprising 21 projects and amounting to a combined US$ 4.6 billion.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
