The PDP is operating on all political levels, соoperating with decision makers on the national, regional, and local levels on upgrading informal areas. Its focus lies on providing participatory methods and instruments for integrated urban development, which are disseminated and anchored within local administrations.

In addition to this, the PDP builds capacities of local administration, youth representatives, local leaders, NGOs and the private sector to support them in enhancing the services and environmental conditions in their areas. To support urgent and concrete measures, the PDP awards grants for small and medium-scale local initiative projects to improve the living conditions and upgrade physical, social and socio-economic infrastructure in selected informal urban areas in Greater Cairo. Youth, women and civil society organisations are being actively included in the planning, as well as in the implementation, operation and maintenance of the measures.

An integrated community-based solid waste management system is introduced in two poor urban areas in Qalyubeya Governorate, taking into consideration the needs of informal waste collectors and recyclers already operating in the sector. In the current phase of the development measure, the issue of climate change and its consequences for informal urban areas is raised for the first time in Egypt in order to increase awareness and promote initiatives improving the resilience of the poor urban population.

Objective

Public administration and civil society organizations cooperatively improve services and environmental conditions for the poor urban population.

GIZ supports the Egyptian Ministry of Housing, Utilities & Urban Communities (MOHUUC), and other partner ministries as well as the governorates of Cairo, Giza and Qalyubeya in developing and implementing sustainable solutions for informal area development.

The PDP promotes a participatory approach to dealing with informal settlements, good governance reforms and decentralisation, and aims to foster the implementation of participatory policy tools and networking mechanisms among public, civil, and private sectors in the sustainable development of informal areas.

Principles

Overarching principles

Several principles guide PDP’s work in the various programme fields and inform our efforts in formulating policy tools for urban development. These principles can be seen as the underlying best-practices in effective and participatory urban governance; they are the components of a certain “way of doing” or approaching urban politics.

These principles are:

• Participation
• Sustainability
• 3-level Approach
• Capacity Development
• Effectiveness & Efficiency
• Transparency
• Community Focus
• Trust Building
• Local Ownership
• Empowerment
• Accountability
• Subsidiarity
• Partnership
• Gender Equality

Tools