This project comes in the context of the strong and growing interest of the Government of Egypt to find integrated and sustainable solutions to some of the key environmental challenges affecting the daily lives of Egyptian citizens. The Solid Waste Management Strategy for Egypt emphasizes the need for collaborative efforts to address the challenges of waste management and the project will work with local stakeholders including public administration, civil society, informal operators and the private sector to develop an agreed upon community-based solid waste management strategy. The approach adopted by the project is premised on the need for collective community participation to address the challenges facing urban communities. It is hoped that this model if proven successful-could be replicated in other cities in Egypt through the support of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), which is a key partner providing technical support to the project.

 A number of activities will be undertaken by the project within the context of the strategy including awareness raising to promote the value of waste and to encourage reuse and source segregation, capacity development for stakeholders on various aspects of waste management, integration of informal workers in the waste management system and establishing two integrated resource recovery centres in the two cities. These activities will lead to the creation of job opportunities for the urban poor and contribute to general improvements in the living environment for local communities in these cities.

Further information: Press Release by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Please find the report under the category Publications.

Download: “Improving Informal Areas in Greater Cairo. The Cases of Ezzbet Al Nasr and Dayer El Nahia”

The PDP contributed to the SymapthieMagazin on Egypt “Ägypten verstehen” with an article on trust building through participation. The article is available in German only.

Download article in SympathieMagazin: “Vertrauensbildung durch Bürgerbeteiligung”

Download: “Improving the Living Conditions of the Poor in Manshiet Nasser”

Please check the category Publications to read more and download the new publication.

This book on “Participatory Upgrading of Informal Areas: A Decision-makers’ Guide for Action” presents the model of participatory upgrading and how to apply it. It aims to simplify the complex issue of participatory upgrading drawing on Egypt’s experience.

The guidelines mainly target decisions-makers involved in upgrading informal areas, and more widely in local development. Among the key players are decision-makers on different levels of the government: local, regional and ministerial level. Accordingly, ministers, governors, district chiefs, heads of relevant departments such as urban planning, planning and monitoring, etc. will find these guidelines useful in explaining what the implementation of participatory upgrading mechanisms requires them to do. More importantly, the guidelines show decision-makers how their sphere interrelates and interacts with many others within and outside government administration and the type of cooperation to expect and endorse. Other groups of stakeholders such as civil society and the private sector will also benefit from these guidelines to understand how governmental bodies can implement and manage participatory upgrading on different levels and how they can complement the role of government. The guidelines are also targeting those working in local development, good governance or poverty alleviation.

Download: “Participatory Upgrading of Informal Areas. A Decision-makers’ Guide for Action”

The volume consists of two parts. The first part “Basic Concepts” describes informal areas as a global phenomenon and their different types in Egypt. It also discusses what is meant by upgrading, why to upgrade and the reasons for using a participatory approach. It then presents the mechanisms and tools of participatory upgrading and their contribution to achieving agreed-upon objectives of local development. The second part ”Guidelines for Action” specifies the application of participatory upgrading on different levels and presents in detail each of its tools in terms of objectives, process steps, partners, framework conditions, capacity development requirements and expected outputs. The volume concludes by illustrating how these tools can interact in a complementary way; how they are implemented on the local level, managed on the regional level and supported by the national level.

“What are the needs of the residents of Ezbet el-Nasr? What are the most pressing problems facing the community and how could they be addressed?” These are questions the Governor of Cairo has to ask himself when searching for an adequate intervention strategy for developing Ezbet al-Nasr, one of the numerous informal areas in Greater Cairo.

In only ten working days, the 18 students of TU Berlin and their two tutors had to accomplish exactly this challenging task: get to know the intervention area, analyse it and develop concrete and realistic implementable strategies for dealing with this area.

Together with community members the students are doing participatory mapping of the area’s problems

The students are predominantly from developing or emerging nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and are participants in TU Berlin’s fifth postgraduate international course in Urban Management. They all have several years of work experience, for the most part in the field of architecture, urban and city planning and administration.

For some years, student research assignments related to one of GIZ supported projects abroad have been taking place within the framework of cooperation between GIZ and TU Berlin. In these assignments, which form an integral part of the master course, the students are faced with the challenge of implementing a research project in the context of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ).

This year’s project assignment took place in Cairo, Egypt, and was accompanied and supported by the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP). For most of the students it was their first visit to Cairo. Nevertheless, the topic of investigation was not new to them as the majority have been involved with slums development, upgrading of poor urban areas and participatory methodologies in their home countries. The international composition of the group was very enriching for the performance of the task.

Despite the time pressure, the two teams – one working in Cairo Governorate and the other in Giza Governorate – developed comprehensive, target-oriented intervention strategies for upgrading the infrastructure and improving the economic conditions of the two informal areas using participatory procedures. The recommendations of the students were very much appreciated and acted upon by the Governors. Accordingly, a proposed interim solution by the students for installing a pump in Ezbet el-Nasr to connect the dysfunctional sewage system to an operational system in the adjacent area has been realized by Cairo Governorate. Hence, the residents of the area had a direct practical benefit from the student’s project.

In addition, the other involved parties also drove substantial benefit from the project: the students by gaining experience and new insights, the Governors by obtaining actual and precise data of the areas as well as upgrading proposals and the GIZ team by getting the chance to introduce new and innovative ideas and potentials for development to their partners.

Download: Press Release in Al-Youm Al-Sabea

The NGO Integrated Care Society (ICS) won the Sharka Award for volunteer work for their upgrading projects in two informal areas in the Governorate of Helwan.

The brochure “Participatory Upgrading of Informal Areas in Helwan” presents these upgrading projects that have been realized in the informal areas Ezbet and Arab El-Walda, located in the Governorate of Helwan. The projects have been assisted by GIZ through the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP). Approaches for participatory upgrading promoted by the PDP have been adopted by ICS for the development of these informal areas.

The objective of ICS was to provide a realistic model that can be repeated for the development of slum areas and that relies on the participation of community members in order to improve the environmental situation, the quality of infrastructure as well as educational, cultural and health services. The brochure presents the successful implementation of the project.

The Sharka Award – being the first prize of its kind in the Arab World – highlights the importance of volunteer efforts. It encourages all those who contribute as volunteers with their efforts to the improvement of various fields.

The brochure is printed bilingual in English and Arabic. For the download, the English and Arabic version have been separated.

Download: Brochure “Participatory Upgrading of Informal Areas in Helwan” in English
Download: Brochure “Participatory Upgrading of Informal Areas in Helwan” in Arabic