Solidarity Ministry witnesses tripartite protocol to empower female farmers

CAIRO – 26 October 2019: Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali witnessed on Saturday the signing of a tripartite cooperation protocol between the ministry, PepsiCo Egypt and CARE Egypt to launch a 3-year program that aims to end food security issues and achieve more gender equality in the agriculture sector.

The USD $3,7-million program, namely Aysheen Be-Kherha “Living By Egypt’s Welfare”, has a goal to Develop the capacity of female farmers to improve nutrition and food security by implementing an integrated approach to address the challenges faced by them, mainly through providing tools, supplies, financing, agricultural training and market access to sell their produce.

The benefits of the program extend to improving the nutritional health of 10,000 women of childbearing age and their small productive families, as well as children under the age of two years in the governorates of Giza, Minya, Beni Suef and Beheira through improved nutrition, access to clean water resources, and neccessary resources for production.

The program also focuses on sustainable water use practices in agriculture.

CARE aims to integrate famle empowerment activities by engaging both women and men effectively to address social and cultural barriers to the integration of women in agricultural supply chains.

According to the protocol, the Ministry of Social Solidarity provides data on the target groups, the selection of beneficiaries, the provision of volunteers to organize and attend seminars to be held within the project activities.

For her part, Wali said that this protocol has several meanings, including the formation of a true developmental program, pointing out that this partnership will make this initiative succeed.

“We have at the ministry detailed databases of more than 30 million Egyptian citizens, including their social, educational, health and economic statuses, and we will use this data to choose the beneficiaries of the program,” Wali added.

Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Egypt Mohamed Shelbaya said his company is proud of striking this partnership with the ministry and CARE to launch the program, which lies within Egypt’s 2030 visionary program and the sustainable aims of achieving gender equality in various fields.

“Women are the other half of society, and we believe in the importance of working with the public sector and civil society institutions to make a positive impact on their lives and turn their biggest challenges into opportunities,” Shelbaya added.

CARE Egypt Head Hazem Fahmy further added that when female farmers increase their productivity, their income will increase, and they will be able to feed their families and admit their children to schools.

He pointed out that CARE International launched this initiative to help female farmers in developing countries to be more self-dependent and be more of help to themselves, their families and societies.