UNFPA and the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD), in cooperation with the National Population Council (NPC), held two workshops during 14-17 March to orient the personnel from the new established population units in eight governorates on the Accelerated Local Response to Population Issues project.
The workshop introduced the project’s objectives to accelerate local responses through the establishment of population task forces at the governorate level. This approach can enhance coordination, monitoring and reporting on the national population strategy.
The project aims to strengthen the population portfolio at the governorate level and builds on the available mechanisms. Population taskforces are formed under the project under the leadership of the different governors.
Being a multisectoral issue, the population taskforces include multiple stakeholders namely, the newly established population units within the governorates directorate, branches of the National Population Council, representatives from multiple directorates (health, youth, education, manpower, etc), youth representatives, population focal points at district and village levels. It also brings together corporate social responsibility focal points, NGOs and academia.
The sessions included orienting members of the task forces on their roles, as well as achievements of the project’s first two years and lessons learned through sharing experience of peers in other governorates.
Participants of the workshops included members of the population units, heads of the NPC branches in the different governorates and youth volunteers of the population taskforce.
Dr Tarek Tawfeek, Deputy Minister of Health and Population for Population Affairs, General Ashraf Mowafy, Secretary General of Kafr El-Sheikh governorate, Mrs. Dawlat Shaarawy UNFPA Population and Development Analyst, Dr. Fatma El-Zahraa, MoLD Project Coordinator and Dr. Alaa Bakr, Institutional Arrangements Consultant attended the opening session of the second workshop.
The workshops are supported by the European Union under the EU Support to Egypt's National Population Strategy project, which aims at stabilizing population growth through increasing the use of voluntary, rights-based family planning.
