Egypt: Green jobs promotion for youth

The project Decent Jobs for Egypt’s Young People (DJEP) aims to create job opportunities for youth in environmentally sustainable activities and has promoted green jobs at both national and local levels.

The Decent Jobs for Egypt’s Young People (DJEP) project funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), has facilitated more than 3,000 employment opportunities for youth, with a particular emphasis on green jobs creation at both the national and local level in three governorates of Minya, Port Said and the Red Sea. Interventions have helped to create awareness and dialogue on the potential benefits of green jobs across several sectors in Egypt.

Raising national awareness on green jobs

A workshop, organized in cooperation with GTZ, addressed different stakeholders on “Skills for Green Jobs in Egypt: The Case of Composting and Renewable Energy” in November 2012, initiating a national process for the development of a vision, strategy and action plan for composting and renewable energy, especially, skills policies and programmes to support sector growth. That same year, the study “Skills for Green Jobs, Egypt” was published. which identifies the key environmental challenges facing Egypt and the necessary skills policy responses required to benefit from the employment opportunities arising from a green economy transition.

Waste recycling and renewable energy

In order to build capacity on waste recycling, the “Start Your Waste Recycling Business” (SYWRB) training toolkit was translated to Arabic, adapted to the Egyptian context and rolled-out, along with an operational training manual.

In addition, the project has supported local waste recycling initiatives in the governorate of Port Said. On 29 March 2015, the project conducted a 5-day training on SYWRB for 25 participants from 17 newly established solid waste management companies and some civil society organizations. Moreover, a consultative meeting conducted in December 2012 in Port Said governorate served to set a strategy and action plan for a solid waste system management in Port Fouad City. Further, two one-day workshops were conducted on 23rd and 24th April 2013, for Port Said University students to raise their environmental awareness about solid waste management and prepare a group of volunteers to help raise environmental awareness.

The project has also created green jobs opportunities for youth in Port Said by establishing two biogas units, which have been fully operational since December 2014 and contribute to clean renewable energy.

Agriculture

The DJEP project has spearheaded several interventions that support sustainable agricultural development for Egypt’s young people. Amongst others, the project has implemented innovative ways to improve agriculture practices, one of which is the solar drying of agriculture products. The R&D Tech Company in Minya was assigned, from 1 August 2013 till 1 February 2014, for the project “Improvement of Post-Harvest processing” through solar drying. The project relies heavily on the solar power use, and it is originally the graduation project of eight students from the faculty of Engineering from Minya University. It created the first solar drying post-harvesting unit in Fayoum and it is now being replicated in other governorates.

Green Tourism 

The DJEP project organized a national conference in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism aimed at creating green jobs in tourism in Egypt’s Red Sea governorate. The conference entitled “Create Green Jobs through Green Tourism – The Green Start Hotel Certification Programme for Hotels in the Red Sea” was held in the popular Egyptian holiday destination Hurghada on June 16 2015 and brought together several national stakeholders and high-level executives, managers and engineers from hotels and resorts across the Red Sear area.

The outcomes of the conference included plans for further collaboration between the DJEP project and the Ministry of Tourism to integrate the Green Star Hotel Certification Programme into the ILO’s “Improving Competitiveness in the Tourism Sector through Decent Work” training toolkit and to create jobs by building the capacity of trainers and auditors.