Yearly Archives: 2014

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Closing Ceremony of the PDP’s Solid Waste Management Project

The Governor of Qalyubeya Inaugurates an Integrated Resource Recovery Centre in Khanka City and a Transfer Station in Khosoos City

Cairo, 7th of December 2014, the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) successfully held a closing ceremony of its Integrated Community Based Solid Waste Management project in the Cities of Khosoos and Khanka together with H.E. Minister Dr. Leila Iskandar, Minister for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements, H.E. Engineer Mohammed Abdel Zaher, Governor of Qalyubeya, and Mrs. Noémie Bürkl, Counsellor, C-Head of Development Cooperation, German Embassy Cairo. The event, which attracted around 100 participants, took place at the newly established Integrated Resource Recovery Centre (IRRC) in Arab El-Olikat local unit in the City of Khanka. The inauguration of this centre as well as the Transfer Station in Khosoos was part of the full day Ceremony. The integrated community based solid waste management (SWM) project is incorporated within the PDP and has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a total amount of USD 5 million, and managed by the GIZ through the support of the Qalyubeya Governorate. “We have put the issue of solid waste management at the Governorate’s top priorities and would like to extend our deepest appreciation to the PDP, using funds provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for developing the solid waste management systems in the two Cities of Khosoos and Khanka,” said H.E. Engineer Mohammed Abdel Zaher, Governor of Qalyubeya. “The project positioned Qalyubeya Governorate as a pioneer in this field.”

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from left to right: Dr. Günther Wehenpohl, Programme Coordinator PDP, H.E. Minister Dr. Leila Iskandar, Minister for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements, H.E. Engineer Mohammed Abdel Zaher, Governor of Qalyubeya and Mrs. Noémie Bürkl, Counsellor, C-Head of Development Cooperation, German Embassy Cairo, inaugurating the IRRC.

On the national level, the project had the vision of making the Qalyubeya experience serve as a model for the SWM strategy. On the local level, the project created livelihood opportunities for the urban poor in Khosoos and Khanka and improved overall environmental conditions for creating a better living environment. The project contributed to the realisation of establishing an integrated and community based solid waste management system in the Cities of Khosoos and Khanka with around 750,000 inhabitants by following five objectives which were:

    • Developing integrated SWM strategies through the participation of all stakeholders
    • Raising awareness among the stakeholders on the existing problems and their roles and responsibilities for the improvement of the SWM system
    • Building the capacity of concerned stakeholders on sustainable and environmentally sound methods of managing waste
    • Improving living and working conditions of informal waste collectors and recyclers
    • Establishing sustainable structures for the recovery and recycling of waste

The idea of establishing the Integrated Resource Recovery Centre (IRRC) in Khanka City derived from the concept of deploying alternative fuels, especially for the cement industry. Hence, the centre separates recyclables and produces compost and Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). It was designed and tendered out following international standards with a total investment cost of about USD 1 million and has a processing capacity of 100 tons of waste per shift. The IRRC is most likely to be tendered out to the private sector for operation with clear conditions to provide the informal sector with working opportunities.

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from left to right: Dr. Günther Wehenpohl, Programme Coordinator PDP, H.E. Engineer Mohammed Abdel Zaher, Governor of Qalyubeya and Mrs. Noémie Bürkl, Counsellor, C-Head of Development Cooperation, German Embassy Cairo, inaugurating the Transfer Station.

Transporting and finally disposing waste was a huge challenge for informal waste collectors. Not only did they need to use their own collection equipment when transporting the waste to the landfill but they also invested a lot of time and money, as the distances between the sites are too long. The project established a transfer station inside Khosoos City in order to address these challenges. Instead of going all the way to the landfill the private collectors can transfer their waste to this station. The total investment of the transfer station is about USD 420,000 including three trucks, ten containers and ten tricycles for the waste collectors.

“While the PDP has been the implementer since the start of the project in October 2010 until its end in December 2014, the success lies in the engagement of all participants: the informal waste workers, the citizens, the municipal and governmental employees,” stated Dr. Günther Wehenpohl, the Programme Coordinator of PDP. “They are the main stakeholders and main actors who continue the work after the project’s end to achieve sustainable impact and improved conditions.”

 

Video: Integrated Community Based Solid Waste Management in Qalyubeya Governorate

 

PDP inaugurates Urban Upgrading Units in Cairo and South Giza Governorates

On 18th of November 2014, the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) successfully inaugurated together with Ahmed Taimor, Deputy Cairo Governor the Governorate District Urban Upgrading Unit (UUU) in Ain Shams, Cairo Governorate. Only two days later, on 20th of November 2014, the PDP successfully inaugurated together with Dr. Aly Abdel Rahman, the Governor of Giza, the UUU in South Giza district in the Giza Governorate. Both events were attended by around 30 partners, Governorate representatives and colleagues. By revealing the memorial marble plates at both premises and cutting the ribbon the events symbolically marked the operation start of both units. In the Ain Shams is located within the premises of the administrative body of the Ain Shams district and will be employing up to six staff members. It is one of four units which are all located within the Cairo Governorate. The South Giza UUU which is located within the premises of the administrative body of the Giza district, will be having around five staff members and is one of three units which are all located within the Giza Governorate.

For the PDP the UUUs are an important part in its participatory approach of upgrading informal areas. Through the units, the development measure is able to further capacity development, institutionalisation as well as decentralisation of administrative bodies. “The general role of the UUUs is to provide strategies and implement mechanisms for the development of informal areas at the Governorate level,” said Dr. Guenther Wehenpohl, Programme Coordinator PDP. “Furthermore, they facilitate technical interventions and approaches as well as support different management styles in urban upgrading.” As each District has its special areas where the PDP implements several projects, the respective UUU has its own tasks to fulfil apart from the general role it plays. In the case of Ain Shams, the unit will be preparing infrastructure projects for the development of informal areas, coordinating with NGOs and youth alliances of the District to prioritize projects, carrying out required and administrative works and attend trainings and meetings. While the UUU in South Giza will be responsible for tasks such as coordinating development mechanisms for informal and unplanned areas using participatory methods to engage the residents and relevant stakeholders, identifying development needs and coordinating the resources required for that and following up with the implementation of all projects. Both events were followed by a lively press conference.

 

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from left to right: Sébastian Trenner, Head Social Section, European Union Delegation to Egypt, H.E. Ahmed, Deputy Cairo Governor, Dr. Guenther Wehenpohl, Programme Coordinator PDP and Eng. Soad Naguib, Deputy Minister of Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements after revealing the marble plate at the Ain Shams UUU.

 

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from left to right: H.E. Dr. Aly Abdel Rahman, the Governor of Giza, Dr. Guenther Wehenpohl, Programme Coordinator PDP and Eng. Soad Naguib, Deputy Minister of Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements cutting the ribbon at the South Giza UUU.

 

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EU Financed Projects Receive High-ranking Visitors from Germany

The Lord Mayor of the City of Stuttgart and his six-member delegation
met with the PDP and its partners in Ezbet el Nasr

On Saturday, 1st of November His Excellency Fritz Kuhn, Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, together with his six-member delegation visited two of the PDP’s grants projects in Ezbet el Nasr, one of the informal areas in Cairo Governorate, as part of his three-days trip to Cairo. Since Stuttgart is the twin city of Cairo the delegation aimed at getting insights of Cairo’s current situation as well as revitalising the existing partnership. The PDP was honoured to be on the agenda of the delegation and to get the opportunity to present itself and its partners to Stuttgarts’ high-ranking delegation. Together with representatives from the German Embassy, members the Cairo Governorate as well as its partners from the area the PDP showed the delegation two of its 17 projects which got awarded with a contract from the European Union as part of its Grant scheme in last July.

The day started to Misr El Qadima Voice Association, an Egyptian NGO, which is implementing environmental measures with its project “My right to live in a clean and secure environment” until the end of June 2015. In Ezbet el Nasr, the project is creating a green area of 1600m2, establishing street lightning, installing fixed garbage containers and bins and raising awareness of local residents on environmental issues. While the delegation was very impressed by the projects’ structure and content it also raised critical questions which were also discussed with the people in charge. To what extend the Cairo Governorate is welcoming and supporting projects like these and how sustainability would be guaranteed after the finalization of the project were the concerns of Lord Mayor Kuhn. Excited about the fact that the informal area will get its first park he appreciated the NGO’s efforts and further encouraged it for future activities.

Fayoum Agro Organic Development Association is the second project visited on the day. It is contributing to the improvement of the educational services in Ezbet El Nasr by establishing a model child club that offers kindergarten services and extra-curriculum activities for teenagers. The delegation and its accompanists were the first high-ranking visitors to the freshly renovated premises of the project. By elaborating on the purpose and structure of the project all attendees could draw a picture of how the kindergarten would look like for the estimated 40-50 children. Lord Mayor Kuhn was very interested in learning about the planned educational and cultural opportunities for both teachers of primary and secondary schools as well as for students from secondary schools.

On the way to the next stop of their programme Lord Mayor Kuhn and his six-member delegation reflected on the newly gained impressions and already thought about new fields of cooperation between the twin cities Stuttgart and Cairo.

 

Supporting information on the Second Call for Proposals

The Contracting Authority is pleased to inform potential Applicants that all “Questions & Answers” (FAQ) during the Concept Notes phase have been uploaded on our website: http://egypt-urban.net/secondcall/faq/

Due to the large number of enquiries the Contracting Authority decided at short notice to provide a partially translated Arabic version of the Guidelines for Grant Applicants: نسخة مترجمة من الدليل الإرشادي للمتقدمين للمنح (Guidelines-for-Grant-Applicants, Arabic version).

Note: In the event of inconsistency between the English and Arabic versions of this Guidelines for Grant Applicants, the English version shall take precedence.
“فى حالة وجود عدم توافق بين النسخة الإنجليزية والعربية لهذا الدليل للمتقدمين بطلب الحصول على المنح، تجب النسخة باللغة الإنجليزية”

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Bridging Community Development and Private Sector PDP Holds first Workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility

On September 30th 2014, the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) successfully conducted its first workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Fairmont Hotel in Cairo. The purpose of the full day event was to identify possibilities for the private sector to involve in the improvement of informal areas in the Greater Cairo Region (CGR) and hence, attracted participants from civil society organisations, educational institutions, district authorities as well as representatives from the profit-making sector with an interest in socially responsible business. “With this workshop we aimed to widen the circle of stakeholders engaged in community development in order to facilitate innovative, inclusive urban upgrading that is coherent with existing initiatives,” said Michael Heathcote, Head of Component Civil Society/Fund Management, PDP. “We hope that it can bring about more efficient and sustainable urban development in the Greater Cairo Region.”

Following morning information sessions on opportunities in corporate social responsibility approaches and collaboration with the PDP, all participants were then facilitated in an afternoon networking session, to encourage information sharing between representatives from different sectors holding interests in specific themes, such as health, climate change, waste management or transportation.

Private Sector Representatives interested in CSR engagement through PDP

 

 

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Climate Change in Cities

The Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) and the  2nd Arab Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction

September 2014 could be named as the month of Climate Change Awareness. Besides the UN Climate Change Summit that took place in New York on 23rd of September other regional conferences were conducted to emphasize on the urgent need for change and solution finding for that topic. Climate Change is happening now and consequences on people’s lives are already recognizable on a global scale. Especially the Arab peninsula is the most affected region by climate change, often felt as extreme weather events. And while the region’s urban population continues to grow, climate change will have a significant impact on the future development of Arab cities and adaptation to it already became an urgent necessity. Therefore, climate change was one of the important topics discussed at the second Arab Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, mid of September 2014.

During the conference the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) organized a side event titled Climate Change in Cities which main focus was to emphasize the need and potential of cities for increasing their resilience to climate change affected disaster risks. Furthermore, PDP promoted its participatory approach of climate change adaptation and resilience through illustrating the main concept of climate change and urbanization, mutual interaction between cities and climate change as well as PDP’s approach to address that issue in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR). “The two overarching phenomena which progressively inform the Arab region’s development trajectory in the 21st century are rapid urbanization and climate change,” said Carl Philipp Schuck, Head of Component “Climate Change Adaptation in Informal Urban Areas, PDP. “Climate change has become a global reality and is now being regarded as one of the world’s top challenges while its impact is being felt in all countries around the globe, with different impacts and on different scales though.”

Lessons and experiences about good practices in capacity building and awareness from the other Arab cities which participated at that side event namely Cairo (Egypt), Petra, (Jordan), Ramallah (Palestine) and Thalah (Morocco) illustrated their experiences ending in sharing recommendations of managing the climate change risks in urban cities. Despite urban areas are being particularly vulnerable to climate change there lies also an enormous amount of opportunities in cities to adapt to impacts of climate change, increase their resilience and mitigate disaster risks. Examples for this include the cities of Cairo, Petra and Ramallah, all with different urbanization patterns and challenges of dealing with climate change.

The side event fostered a lively discussion between the panelists and the attendees of which following issues were identified the most:

Key questions or issues raised, challenges or constraints identified by panelists:

  • Impacts of climate change and other natural disasters on urban areas (cities) and its most vulnerable groups such as women, elder people and children who lives in most vulnerable areas such as informal areas or poor groups
  • Weak link between central government and its national strategies & plans and local governments when who’s responsible for implementation on the ground
  • No available fund or allocated fund for cities to face the climate change challenge and its risks

Main proposed solutions, messages or recommendations raised by panelists:

  • Decentralization in dealing with disaster risk and climate change is highly important
  • Establishing Arab fund for risk disaster management and climate change impacts would be one of the important tools to support local cities to implement existing strategies and plans or have its own plan to face those challenges
  • Twinning /networking between well experienced cities and less experienced cities is highly important

Main issues, suggestions, concerns or recommendations raised by Audience:

  • Importance of strengthen the institutional and legislation of local cities to be able to cope with climate change impacts in the most vulnerable areas (Mauritania)
  • Mainstreaming climate change and risk disaster management issues within local development plans will reduce the cost and the time (Morocco)

Conclusions by the Chair of the session:

  • The topic of climate change in cities is an emerging topic which needs more attention from researchers, practitioners and policy makers
  • There is a good potential to reduce the risk of climate change on urban cities if the local governments are empowered by central governments through allocating financial resources and providing them with required technical capacity
  • Using participatory approaches such as GIS and community mapping are highly important to give the opportunity for individual public (especially women, children and youth) and local NGOs to support the local government efforts to face the challenge of climate change risks and impacts
  • Raising awareness and education is highly important to empower individual public
  • Using social media and mobile networks (SMS text) are a cheap means for informing public about their role to face climate change impacts and risks
  • Small and medium cities should receive more attention from donors and funding agencies as most of the funded projects goes to capitals and mega cities

In a nutshell, key to success in fighting climate change induced hazardous impacts on the cities’ infrastructure, economy and public health is a distinct shift in urban policies which help to prioritize the local authorities’ and civil societies’ support to urban communities most vulnerable to a variety of disaster risks. Another promising success approach is a participatory, people-oriented one where residents and civil society organizations become familiar with the concepts of climate change adaptation, urban resilience and disaster risk management, and where they can actively contribute to the implementation of their city’s resilience action plans.

 

2nd information workshop: September 15th 2014

The Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) is holding the second information workshop on September 15th at the Conrad Hotel from 9:00 am to 05:00 pm. This workshop supports the recent launch of the Second Call for Proposals focused on education, solid waste management, recreation and youth, transportation, environment and climate change.

In this workshop, PDP will share knowledge in Health, Education and Transportation with the participants, and offer them an opportunity for dialogue discussion. As a supplement there will be a session on Project Design.

The invitees are programme partners and potential grant applicants under this Second Call for Proposals.

The AGENDA will be as follows:

Agenda for September 15th workshop

9:00 – 9:30 Registration
9:30 – 10:00 Welcome Note and Opening StatementsMichael Heathcote, Head of Management Grant Scheme, GIZ Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP)
10:00 – 11:00 Health
11:00 – 11:15 Q & A
11:15 – 11:30 Coffee Break
11:30 – 12:30 Education
12:30 – 12:45 Q & A
12:45 – 13:45 Transportation
13:45 – 14:00 Q & A
14:00 – 14:30 Coffee Break
14:30 – 16:00 Project Design
16:00 – 17:00 Lunch

Important: Grant Concept Note Submission

According to section 2.2.2. in the Guidelines for Grant Applicant, Concept Notes should be sent to GIZ, Participatory Development Programme, 12 El Saleh Ayoub Str., 5th floor, 11211 Zamalek, Cairo.

“Concept Notes must not be sent by any other means (e.g. by fax or by e-mail) or delivered to other addresses – or they will be rejected

Trainings for Concept Note Writing – last 2 rounds

Supplementing the Second Call for Proposals (launched 22nd August) the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) is currently holding formal “Trainings for Concept Note Writing”. Four training sessions have been scheduled.

Trainees who already participated in the first training session (3rd – 4th September) considered the provided information to be very helpful.

NOTE: The last two training sessions (with limited training places!) will be held at Sonesta Hotel on 10th -11th September and 17th – 18th September.

For registration click here: http://training.egypt-urban.net

2nd Launch Second Call for Proposals – Workshops

The Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) is holding two information workshops on September 9th and September 15th to support the recent launch of the Second Call for Proposals.

The Second Call for Proposals focuses on six thematic areas: health, education, solid waste management, recreation and youth, transportation, environment and climate change.

In these workshops, PDP will share its knowledge and experience in these thematic areas with the participants, and offer them an opportunity for dialogue discussion. The workshops will supplement the formal Training for Concept Note Writing held at Sonesta Hotel from 3 to 18 of September.

The workshop on September 9th will address youth, solid waste management and environment (climate change) and will take place at the Conrad Hotel from 9:00 am to 05:00 pm.

The workshop on September 15th will cover health, education and transportation and will take place at the Conrad Hotel from 9:00 am to 05:00 pm.

The invitees are programme partners and potential grant applicants under this Second Call for Proposals.

Agenda for September 9th workshop

9:00 – 9:30 Registration
9:30 – 10:00 Welcome Note and Opening StatementsMichael Heathcote, Head of Management Grant Scheme, GIZ Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP)
10:00 – 11:15 Solid Waste ManagementHeba Behairy, Head of Component Solid Waste Management, GIZ Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP)
11:45 – 13:00 Environment and Climate Change AdaptationPhilipp Schuck, Head of Component Environment and Climate Change , GIZ Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP)
13:30 – 14:45 Youth & GenderSundus Balata, Deputy Programme Coordinator Senior Advisor on Gender and Youth

UPDATE: 2nd information workshop: September 15th 2014