The World Bank approves a $500m loan to Egypt as part of the bank’s efforts to reduce the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Egypt’s food security.
The World Bank, through its Emergency Food Security and Resilience Support Project, aims to provide unprivileged Egyptian households with uninterrupted access to bread; a staple in Egypt.
“This project supports the government’s strong commitment to ensuring that the needs of citizens continue to be met even amid a very challenging global context caused by concomitant crises such as COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine,” said Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation. “In addition to ensuring sustained food security, this project supports national climate efforts by increasing agricultural resilience.”
Given that the world has relied heavily on wheat exports from The Russian Federation and Ukraine, the recent war has caused shortages and an increase in prices for wheat-dependent countries, such as Egypt whose citizens highly consume bread.
The project will be supporting Egypt to become prepared for any future crisis, as well as amplifying its efforts in terms of waste in the wheat supply chain, through growing and expanding of climate-resilient wheat silos.
It will also be providing funds for the public procurement of imported wheat, particularly for The Bread Subsidy Program, financing an equivalent of one month of supply for the program that supports around 70 million low-income Egyptians.
“It is part of broader World Bank efforts to support Egypt’s green, inclusive and resilient recovery. As always we are keen to continuously support Egypt in overcoming obstacles to its ambitious sustainable development plans and to further enable the country to pave the way for a prosperous and productive future for all its citizens.” said Marina Wes, World Bank Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti.
It is worth mentioning that the last stage reached by the World Bank and Ministry of International Cooperation is bank approval, and the closing date for this project is set to be June of 2026.
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