Sohag Rural Development Project

The goal of this six-year IFAD-initiated project is to support a high-priority rural development effort by the government in Sohag, one of the country’s poorest governorates, where 50 per cent of the households are considered poor, and 36 per cent are extremely poor. The objectives of the project are to:

• promote sustainable rural development by using participatory approaches
• improve the capacity of communities and local governments to be directly involved in all phases of a range of rural infrastructure subprojects
• improve access to credit, especially for unemployed young people and women

The project will benefit about 75 per cent of the governorate’s rural inhabitants (2.3 million people in 350,000 households). Moreover, it represents a landmark initiative in the region. Control over public-sector resources and investments is being fully decentralized to local administrative units at the village level. Villages are identifying and preparing their own village-level infrastructure investments. The experience that IFAD hopes to gain is expected to provide important insights for other countries in the region, where planning and control of public-sector investments often remain largely under the control of central government ministries.

Source: IFAD