Enhancing Climate Resilience of Smallholders in Middle Egypt
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Enhancing Climate Resilience of Smallholders in Middle Egypt | Egypt World Food Programme (WFP) 24 August 2017 Project/Programme Title: Enhancing Climate Resilience of Smallholders in Middle Egypt Country/Region: Egypt Accredited Entity: World Food Programme Mrs. Yasmine Fouad, Assistant Minister, Ministry of National Designated Authority: Environment for Sustainable Development and External Affairs PROJECT / PROGRAMME CONCEPT NOTE GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 23 OF 23 Please submit the completed form to [email protected] A. Project / Programme Information A.1. Project / programme title Enhancing Climate Resilience of Smallholders in Middle Egypt A.2. Project or programme Project A.3. Country (ies) / region Egypt A.4. National designated Ministry of Environment for Sustainable Development and External Affairs authority(ies) A.5. Accredited entity World Food Programme A.6. Executing entity / Executing Entity: Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation beneficiary A.7. Access modality Direct International x A.8. Project size category (total investment, million Micro (≤10) ☒ Small (10<x≤50) ☐ Medium (50<x≤250) ☐ Large (>250) ☐ USD) A.9. Mitigation / adaptation Mitigation ☐ Adaptation ☒ Cross-cutting ☐ focus A.10. Public or private Public Which of the following targeted results areas does the proposed project/programme address? Reduced emissions from: ☐ Energy access and power generation (E.g. on-grid, micro-grid or off-grid solar, wind, geothermal, etc.) ☐ Low emission transport (E.g. high-speed rail, rapid bus system, etc.) ☐ Buildings, cities, industries and appliances (E.g. new and retrofitted energy-efficient buildings, energy-efficient equipment for companies and supply chain management, etc.) ☐ Forestry and land use A.11. Results areas (E.g. forest conservation and management, agroforestry, agricultural (mark all that apply) irrigation, water treatment and management, etc.) Increased resilience of: ☒ Most vulnerable people and communities (E.g. mitigation of operational risk associated with climate change – diversification of supply sources and supply chain management, relocation of manufacturing facilities and warehouses, etc.) ☒ Health and well-being, and food and water security (E.g. climate-resilient crops, efficient irrigation systems, etc.) ☐ Infrastructure and built environment (E.g. sea walls, resilient road networks, etc.) ☐ Ecosystems and ecosystem services (E.g. ecosystem conservation and management, ecotourism, etc.) A.12. Project / 5 years programme life span A.13. Estimated Start: October 2017………………………... implementation start and end date End: October 2022…………………………. 1 Please use the following naming convention for the file name: “[CN]-[Agency short name]-[Date]-[Serial number]” (e.g. CN-ABC- 20150101-1). PROJECT / PROGRAMME CONCEPT NOTE GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 23 OF 23 B. Project/Programme Details The Fund requires the following preliminary information in order to promptly assess the eligibility of project/programme investment. These requirements may vary depending on the nature of the project/programme. COUNTRY BACKGROUND Egypt is comprised of three agro-ecological zones, namely Lower, Middle and Southern Egypt, with Middle and Southern Egypt collectively referred to as Upper Egypt2. Upper Egypt is comprised of 10 Governorates, namely, Giza, Beni Suef, Fayoum, Menia, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, Luxor and Aswan and the New Valley. Assuit, Sohag, Qena, Luxor and Aswan form Southern Egypt; while Middle Egypt is comprised of Giza, Beni Suef, Fayoum. Menia and the New Valley. Upper Egypt is home to 37 percent of Egypt’s population and 45 percent of the B.1. Project / programme country’s rural population3. Forty percent of the Egyptian poor, and 66 per cent of the description (including country’s extreme poor live in Upper Egypt. With a poverty incidence of 41.2 per cent objectives) in Upper Egypt, almost the double of national average, Upper Egypt is the poorest region in the country. Within Upper Egypt, the percentage of poor and near poor in the rural areas is 75 per cent against 49 per cent for Rural Lower Egypt4. Similar to poverty indicators, food security analysis indicates that Upper Egypt is the most food and nutrition insecure region in Egypt. According to 2016 calculations by the World Food Programme5, 31.7% of the households of Upper Egypt has poor access to food. This is almost double the national rate of 15.9%. The situation is particularly worse in the rural areas of Upper Egypt, where the recorded figure is 38.7%. Regarding nutrition, Upper Egypt is home to 56.2% of the country’s households with poor dietary diversity and 64.8% of the households with deficiency in calorie consumption. 2 Some references, publications and Government agencies refer to Upper Egypt as Southern Egypt only. Others refer to Upper Egypt as the area comprised of Southern and Middle Egypt. This proposal uses the latter definition for Upper Egypt. 3 Egyptian National Agricultural Adaptation Strategy, May 2010 Egypt Human Development Report (2010). Ministry of Planning and UNDP 4 Egypt Country Analysis Report (2016). The United Nations. 5 Calculations made by the Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping Unit, World Food Programme-Egypt Country office in 2016 based on data from the bi-annual National Household Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey of 2015. PROJECT / PROGRAMME CONCEPT NOTE GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 23 OF 23 Upper Egypt Upper Egypt relies predominantly on agriculture. It accounts for 63% of the zone’s employment and contribute 40% of its rural income. While it is a source of income for 85% of the zone’s rural households, it is a sole source of income for 60% of its rural households. Overall, it secures 40% of the food needs of the zone6. Studies indicate that Upper Egypt as a whole will be subject to progressive increases in temperature from 1.5-2oC by 2040 to 1.9-2.2oC and 3-3.50C by 2060 and 2100 respectively7. Increases in temperatures subjects Upper Egypt (both Middle and Southern Egypt) to a minimum of 30 percent reduction in its food production by 2040 as a result of climate change impacts, including reduced crop and livestock productivity, increasing crop-water demand and reduced water use efficiency, increase in pest and disease infestations, etc. If no adaptation solutions are introduced. This will compound its already economically stressed and food –insecure state8. The Ministry of Agriculture started its response to climate impacts on agriculture and livelihoods of Upper Egypt in 2013 through the ‘Building Resilient Food Security Systems to Benefit the Southern Egypt Region’ Project. This project is implemented by the Government of Egypt in collaboration with the World Food Programme and aims to improve the adaptive capacity of the Southern zone in the face of climate- induced reduction in food production. To be completed in October 2018, the project is implemented in the 5 Governorates of the zone, namely Assuit, Sohag, Qena, Luxor and Aswan and is funded by the UNFCCC9 Adaptation Fund. The ‘Building Resilient Food Security Systems to Benefit the Southern Egypt Region’ Project proved to be a highly successful model for building resilience and enhancing livelihoods of vulnerable farms and rural communities of upper Egypt in the face of climate change. Its external mid-term evaluation ranked it as ‘Highly Satisfactory’. 6 Upper Egypt—Challenges and Priorities for Rural Development, World Bank Policy Note, 2006 7 Climate: Observations, projections and impacts, UK Met office, 2011 and Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Egyptian Economy, UNDP, 2013 8 Analysis based on anticipated impacts of Climate Change on food production highlighted below . 9 The Adaptation Funds’ reasons for the selection of this project were: - It will help learn from a number of adaptation options in response to climate threats affecting water management and agricultural production in dry lands; - It will help learn from successful awareness raising strategies, participatory approaches to adaptation and community ownership; - It may allow drawing lessons from the project’s approach to gender-related issues. PROJECT / PROGRAMME CONCEPT NOTE GREEN CLIMATE FUND | PAGE 23 OF 23 The UNFCCC Adaptation Fund (AF) also acknowledges the ‘Building Resilient Food Security Systems to Benefit the Southern Egypt Region’ project as one of its successful models from which others can learn. Within AF’s strategy to use information from its funded projects/programmes under implementation to (i) enhance countries’ capacity and knowledge to improve the design and increase the effectiveness of future adaptation projects/programmes, and to (ii) inform its decision making, enhance transparency and improve the AF’s overall effectiveness, it selected the project for documentation of best practices in a knowledge sharing product that it is currently developing. Consultations done for the preparation of this concept note indicate that farmers of Middle Egypt are already hard hit by negative impacts of climate change on their productivity and food security. Examples of this included that almost every year at least one extreme weather event occurs, destroying up to 30% of their crop which in turn dramatically affects their food security Irrigation water requirements were also reported to increase, where farmers had to increase the duration of irrigation from 5 hours to 7 hours per acre for most of their crops. A decline in the quality and quantity of their tomato cultivations was attributed to an evident rise in mean temperatures during summers,