Project Background
The project titled ‘Supporting the Ministry of Local Development in Decentralization and Integrated Local Development with Special Emphasis on Upper Egypt’ aims to support the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in being capable of achieving its core mandates, particularly creating a modernized and decentralized local administration system at the central and local levels in selected governorates, which adheres to good governance, whose function is to support and promote integrated local development through upholding excellence in local public services delivery and promoting local economic and social development.
Developing and rebuilding central and local institutional capacity is core not only for implementing decentralization, but also to achieving the ultimate objective of local development as represented in Local Economic Development (LED) and provision of improved services and infrastructure. Creating productive employment opportunities in each locality that caters to all requires effective and practical yet a strategic framework for economic development, including targeted public investment in infrastructure, development of human capabilities, active promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship, and alignment with national policies for trade, investment and the like. Moreover, enhancing public service delivery systems increase citizen satisfaction with government performance, particularly when adhering to good governance.
Objective:
In continuous attempts to support the development of conducive and sustainably-competitive local economies, the Ministry of Local Development established different financial instruments and LED entities to support the growth of local economies, reduce poverty and utilize natural and human resources, and creates decent jobs for all, specially, women, youth and the disabled. One of these LED instruments is the Local Development Fund (LDF) that was established under the Presidential Decree 310 for the year 1978 to support the governorates and local units in addressing poverty and supporting entrepreneurship in villages all over Egypt.
In addition to the LDF, the Ministry launched in 2015 an initiative to support economic development as well as to incorporate social development. Your Project Initiative was established aiming to address unemployment through availing funding and providing technical support and facilitation of permits through one-stop-shop mechanisms through local administration in each governorate. Besides, the Ministry has its own vocational training workshops in a number of governorates for different handicrafts that employ a large number of workers and employees. These workshops were originally initiated to support the development of the handicrafts sector by creating skillful and well-trained workers and match the market demand. Currently these vocational training workshops are not responding to market needs in ways that would boost the handicrafts sector and support it economically.
Over time, the successive attempts of institutional restructuring of MoLD taking place under different Ministry leadership led to changing the institutional affiliation and accordingly the mandates of these entities. By eliminating the Agency for the Development and Construction of Egyptian Villages (to which the LDF was affiliated), the new governing arrangement of the Fund is unclear. This perpetuated the deficiencies in the overall performance of the LDF and weakened its role financially and technically.
As for Your Project Initiative, it was not embedded within the organizational structure of the Ministry in the first place. In addition, its correlation with the LDF is not clear, particularly that both entities support local development financially. Thus, the need arises to identify any overlapping mandates and to support the Ministry in the restructuring of these financial instruments by initially developing adequate business models, operational processes and guidelines, and mapping out of potential sources of funds.
The objective of this consultancy mission is to lead the development of viable and sustainable business models to the three LED-related entities affiliated to the Ministry of Local Development within its mandate in promoting and supporting LED.