Egypt has launched Sunday a $500 million Local Development Programme for Upper Egypt, primarily funded by the World Bank. The programme aims to improve the business environment for private sector development, strengthen local government capacity for quality infrastructure and service delivery in select governorates in Upper Egypt and create more sustainable jobs, Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said. It will introduce an integrated approach to improving local development anchored at the governorate level, Nasr added. The Egyptian minister further said that Qena and Sohag were chosen to be the cornerstone of the programme implementation. "The choice of Sohag and Qena governorates is based on a clear set of selection criteria: population size, poverty rates, geographic contiguity, economic potential, access to basic services, and governorate readiness." Nasr said. The programme comes within the framework of the World Bank's Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for 2015–2019, which provides about $8 billion for supporting Egypt's economy. The launch of the programme was in the presence of Minister Nasr, Egyptian Minister of Trade Tarek Qabil, Mirza Hassan Executive Director for Egypt and the Arab Group at the World Bank, and Asad Alam, World Bank Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti.
