Egypt Annual Country Report 2023 - Country Strategic Plan 2023 - 2028
WFP Egypt launched its new 2023-2028 Country Strategic Plan (CSP) in July to expand on the previous CSP and continue supporting the Government in addressing nutrition and food security challenges. WFP’s CSP aims to address the root causes of food insecurity, poverty and malnutrition by implementing diverse interventions in the areas of social protection, nutrition, resilience-building among smallholder farmers, and national capacity strengthening in alignment with Egypt's Vision 2030 and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework1 .
From July to December 2023, WFP provided USD 27.9 million of assistance to over 720,000 people. WFP continued its critical support to the ongoing Sudan emergency response and contributed to the response efforts to the Gaza emergency in October.
Despite funding challenges, WFP continued providing vital cash assistance to 185,000 refugees and asylum seekers, including those affected by the Sudan crisis. However, due to limited funding as of September 2023, WFP had to reduce the number of assisted refugees from other nationalities (excluding newcomer Sudanese) by 35 percent. Additionally, cash assistance for nutritional support for 8,000 pregnant and breastfeeding refugee women (PBW) and food-for-training activities for 3,750 refugees and host communities continued to be halted.
From the onset of the Sudan crisis in April until December 2023, WFP provided food and cash assistance to 115,000 people fleeing Sudan, in partnership with the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) and other NGOs. WFP also offered its cash-delivery platform to sister UN agencies and partners to facilitate their reach to more vulnerable Sudanese. In response to the Gaza crisis starting in October 2023, WFP’s Regional Bureau in Cairo provided logistical support to the emergency response efforts led by the government and the ERC for the delivery of critical food aid across the borders.
On the development front, WFP, in partnership with the Government of Egypt, strengthened its integrated rural development approach for the promotion of social protection, climate adaptation, education, nutrition and resilience-building, under the national 'Decent Life' initiative (‘Hayah Karima’ in Arabic) for the development of Egyptian rural villages. To boost employability and access to livelihood opportunities, WFP collaborated with the Ministry of Labour to offer vocational training and skills development programmes to 379 young people2 in vulnerable situations, focusing on various fields in-demand in the labour market. This was complemented with capacity strengthening to the Ministry on labour market information management, fostering public-private partnerships, and a twinning programme between the ministry’s trainers and service providers.