As Egypt continues to make every effort to improve the living conditions of its people, and in line with the country’s national development goals 2030, under the auspices of the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development and the Ministry of Local Development, a national conference was held on Monday 17 July to discuss River Bank Filtration (RBF) for Drinking Water Supply in Egypt.
Mustafa Madbouli, Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban communities; and Hisham al-Sherif, Minister of Local Development; opened the conference which was organised by the United Nations Human Settlements Program in cooperation with the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Five UN organizations (UN-Habitat, UNIDO, UN-Women, ILO and IOM) have collaborated with the support and cooperation of the Ministry of Local Development and Minya Governorate to develop an example of integrated local development based on the combined protection and empowerment approach for local communities and administrations, through “Hayat project for local development”, funded by the United Nations Trust Fund and Swiss Development Cooperation.
As part of the project’s objectives of supporting and developing the infrastructure, the project was able to provide clean drinking water with innovative technology to 150,000 residents of al-Edwah and Maghagha centres in Minya governorate in less than 6 months and at a cost of less than 5 per cent of the cost of water delivery using traditional technology.
The conference aimed to develop a strategic vision for the scale up and replication of the implementation of this technology at the national level, which would save about 2.5 billion Egyptian pounds of the state budget and enable delivery of clean drinking water to more than 3 million people prioritising vulnerable communities.
The conference called on donors, as well as international development and research communities to support this project to develop an executive plan that includes the feasibility for the implementation areas and the transfer of international expertise to plan and implement the units through a clear system of management, operation and maintenance. This should ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of interventions to enable Egypt to comply with the latest international technologies that ensure economic and environmental efficiency, supporting Egypt’s progress towards development goals in line with the global vision of sustainable development.
Watani International
23 July 2017