Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi followed up on the executive situation of the Presidential Decent Life Initiative for the development of the Egyptian countryside during his meeting with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli, a host of ministers and Head of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority Major General Hesham el-Swifi.
The meeting was attended by Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Mohamed Shaker, Petroleum and Mineral Wealth Minister Tarek el-Mulla, Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Planning and Economic Development Minister Hala al-Saeed, Local Development Minister Mahmoud Shaarawi, Communications and IT Minister Amr Talaat, and Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities Minister Assem el-Gazzar, Presidency Spokesman Bassam Radi said.
President Sisi was briefed on the work progress and the executive situation of the first state of Decent Life initiative, which includes 1,477 villages and their affiliates, with a population of 18 million people, Radi said.
The meeting reviewed the ongoing work in this stage nationwide, and the developments in all governorates, taking into consideration the nature and conditions of each governorate.
He also checked the implementation rates in various sectors, particularly sewage, drinking water, natural gas, electricity and lighting, communications and post, and transport and roads, in addition to model government complexes, irrigation and agriculture, education, health, youth and sports, social solidarity programmes, housing, local development, and the various initiatives for economic development, Spokesman Radi added.
The president also reviewed the overall challenges that have emerged between the planning phase and actual practices on the ground, and the measures to counter them, as well as the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic, and Russia-Ukraine crisis on supply chains of raw materials and various industrial components and their global prices.
Discussions considered the unprecedented amount of work in the initiative’s projects, the largest in the history of national projects in the country, besides the presence of huge population concentrations outside the urban areas of these villages, and their 10000 affiliates.
One significant challenge is that the implementation of certain projects overlaps with the planting season and supply of some strategic food commodities, the spokesman said.
President Sisi directed the government to depend on local components, as much as possible, in implementing the Decent Life projects due to the disruption of the global supply chains.
This offers an opportunity for industry localisation, and reliance on local technology, in partnership and co-operation with investors and the private sector, Spokesman Radi said.
