The Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation of the Arab Republic of Egypt Dr Adel El Beltagy has pledged his Government’s full support to Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) implementation in Egypt. The Minister made these remarks during a meeting held on 30 June 2014 with a delegation from NEPAD headed by Mr Martin Bwalya – the Head of CAADP and Mr Simon Kisira, monitoring and evaluation expert for the Programme. The Agency is exploring measures to accelerate Egypt’s implementation of CAADP agenda.

Within the framework of South-South Cooperation, the Minister stated the commitment of Egypt to share knowledge and experiences with other African countries. Specifically, he expressed his Government’s willingness to transfer knowledge and technologies in various agriculture fields such as agro-industry, irrigation, animal and plant protection, and GIS for strengthened data and evidence generation. This will be pursued through exchange visits as well as trainings conducted by Egyptian agricultural training institutions.

The Mission Team also met with the president and senior staff of the Desert Research Centre, the President of the Central Agriculture Cooperatives Union, and the Director General of the Chairman of the General Authority for Fish Resources Development. Meetings were also held with the President and senior staff of the Agriculture Research Centre, and with Director and other senior staff of the International Relations Division in the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation.

A roadmap towards a formal launch of CAADP in Egypt, and signing the CAADP Compact was agreed.