Upper Egypt Local Development Program (UELDP)

Under the guidance of the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee, UELDP enhanced Local economic development & service delivery by expanding Local Governments’ mandates. It established Local Implementation Units (LIU) in each Governorate to facilitate participatory investment planning & implementation of Annual Investment Plans. LIUs were supported by Local Economic Councils (LEC) comprising of members from the private sector. LIUs’ capacities were built in community consultations, Public Capital Expenditure Planning, procurement & contract management, environmental & social risk management to allow them to invest in sectors beyond their traditional scope. Additional capacity building efforts in spatial planning, asset management, engineering design & supervision are underway to improve planning. Disbursement-Linked indicators were jointly developed by GoE & WB to sharpen the focus of monitoring & encourage results-based management at local level. Through four planning cycles, more than 3700 projects were implemented and changed peoples’ lives. In collaboration with MPED, UELDP introduced a formula-based allocation system for public capital expenditure. The formula was the fruit of joint efforts from Ministries of Finance, Local Development, and MPED. It accounted for population, urbanization level, and poverty-levels to determine governorates budget allocation. In 2018, MPED issued a Ministerial decree roll-out the formula-based allocation system in all 27 Governorates of Egypt. This action resulted in the mobilization of resources directed to the poorest Governorates and inspired the initiation of “Decent Life” Programme in 2019. Funded entirely by the GoE, “Decent Life” is working on developing the basic services in more than 1500 of the poorest village across Egypt.