The programme includes two major components — support for the food security response and building private sector and fiscal resilience.

The first component seeks to increase national agricultural productivity and mitigate food security risks for people in vulnerable situations. The programme will support broad-based growth by increasing agricultural productivity and sustainability by setting additional incentives to encourage local farmers to grow wheat and increasing their share of subsidised fertilisers.

The second component will help enhance Egypt’s private sector and fiscal resilience, which can be instrumental in reducing the economic and social impacts of exogenous shocks.

The programme will be implemented upon a request Egypt’s government filed to the bank in March 2022 to support its efforts to mitigate the impact of the global compounded shocks caused by the Russian-Ukrainian War on the domestic economy and preserve resilience.

Mohamed El-Azizi, AfDB Director-General for North Africa, explains that “this new operation integrates emergency measures as well as structural measures. Its objectives are to strengthen food security and improve the resilience of the private sector and public finances.”

The project comes through a multi-donor stand-alone budget support for Egypt ($97.3 million) from the AfDB and other co-financiers, and the African Emergency Food Production Facility with a total finance of USD 173.7 million that were approved by the Board of Directors on May 2022, according to the bank.

It is worth noting that the AfDB loan is a part of a $1-billion-loan finance to be provided to Egypt in 2022 for the same programme.

This finance will be provided by the AfDB, the World Bank ($400 million), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ($400 million).

Egypt is a founding member of the AfDB Group. Lending operations began in 1974, and since then, the group has financed operations in infrastructure development (transport, power, water supply and sanitation), agriculture, communications, finance, industry, and social sectors, as well as economic and institutional reforms and capacity building.