South Sinai Regional Development Programme

Beneficiary: European Commission

Region: Middle East

The 64 m€-programme designed by the mission aims to promote sustainable, diversified and environmentally sustainable economic activities; to promote social development to meet the diverse needs of the local (Bedouins) and weakest population of the region (non local workers and women); to reinforce the local institutions and the Protectorates; to strengthen development of appropriate environmental management systems to protect the fragile land and maritime environment, and to preserve the cultural heritage of the region, all of which are the region’s main economic assets. The programme preparation was articulated in two phases: the preparation and organisation of a stakeholders’ conference in order to identify the programme priorities and the design of the urgent actions to be funded by the programme at the start up.

The Consultant team prepared a Conceptual Note summarising the key issues and challenges facing South Sinai’s sustainable growth on the basis of other donors and an institutional analysis of the social and environmental development of South Sinai. The experts conducted essential preparatory consultations in South Sinai with representatives of the government, business and community. Six priority fields were defined and a detailed technical annexe was prepared as background information for the conference.

The 3 days Stakeholders’ Conference involved 310 people concerned with South Sinai’s development: national and local governments; traditional and religious communities, community associations and NGOs; business investors, tourism developers and EU member state representatives. The priority actions which have emerged from this Conference were adopted by the Governorate and the EC as priorities for the project implementation.

In the second step, one team of experts drafted 5 pre-feasibility studies and the Terms of Reference for the project design of 9 infrastructure projects. The tasks included the collection of all the information required for these projects, the project definition, its duration and budget, the experts profile required for the project design, the evaluation grid for expert evaluation.

Another team designed a call for proposals with a budget of 20m€ to fund private initiatives in the six priority fields and they developed a concept paper and the guidelines for the call. The experts also designed the training actions (human resources and means) to assist grant applicants in drafting and submitting proposals in a neutral and transparent way as well as the required expertise for proposal evaluation and monitoring of the funded projects. The experts designed the different assignments, defined their duration and budget as well as the required experts profile and the evaluation grid for expert evaluation.