World Bank Regional Director Visits Upper Egypt to Follow up on Local Development Program

The Regional Director of the World Bank Stephane Guimbert visited Qena, in Upper Egypt to follow up on the most important outcomes and results of the local development program there; as a model for integrated local development and its role in enhancing the competitiveness of governorates, improving infrastructure, and developing local administration work systems.

The Regional Director of the World Bank began his visit with a meeting with Governor of Qena Ashraf Al-Daoudi, where he pointed to the program’s role in creating a supportive environment for the development of the local economy by providing industrial zones, supporting investors, and developing the mechanism for managing industrial zones, in addition to developing economic blocs and supporting small producers.

Al-Daoudi also pointed out the program’s role in supporting the simplification of procedures for obtaining government services, investors’ services, and owners of small and medium industries by supporting and developing technological centers and developing their infrastructure and work systems.

He added that the local development program in Upper Egypt contributed to developing the work mechanisms of local administration at its various levels, supporting and building the capabilities of local administration employees, supporting local infrastructure through the drinking water and sanitation sector, local roads, developing and establishing local markets, and working to support the governorate in establishing an exemplary craftsmanship area.

Guimbert also met with a number of investors and the Board of Directors of the industrial zone in Nag Hammadi, who expressed their appreciation for the role played by the Local Development Program in Upper Egypt in bringing about a qualitative shift in the facilities of the industrial zone, which had been dilapidated due to time - as it was established in the 1990s.

They also praised the program's ability to meet their needs for facilities, whether electrical capacity, water, sewage, and communications lines, and the program's provision of making natural gas available to industrial zones with all their factories, in a precedent that the state allocated to Upper Egypt in light of the directives of the political leadership to pay attention to Upper Egypt after years of marginalization.

In the same context, the Regional Director inspected the economic blocs exhibition that was organized on the sidelines of the visit, where he met with exhibitors of the most important products of economic blocs in the governorates of Qena, Assiut, and Sohag, where he listened to an explanation on their latest products.