Washington, March 23, 2010 - The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a loan for Egypt in the amount of $ 30 million as additional financing for the Second National Drainage Project.
The project aims to support the Government of Egypt’s (GoE) efforts to increase the agriculture productivity of irrigated lands through the improved drainage of agricultural lands and the provision of all irrigated areas with subsurface drains.
“We are pleased to continue to support the Second National Drainage Project whose activities are included in all of the earlier and current Governmental Five-Year Development Plans. At the same time, this support is in line with the Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy which identifies enhancing the provision of public services as a key objective to achieve sustainable growth,” said A. David Craig, Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti.
The main objectives of the original project and of the additional financing project are to: a) increase the agriculture productivity of irrigated lands by improving drainage conditions through evacuation of excess irrigation water by subsurface drains; and b) to avoid yield and production losses on this land, which would result if water logging and soil salinity problems were to persist.
“The additional finance will support the up-scaling of the project activities including the provision of new subsurface drainage for additional area of about 35,000 feddans and rehabilitation of malfunctioning existing subsurface drainage in an additional area of about 55,000 feddans,” said Hani El Sadani, the World Bank Project Task Team leader.
The original Second National Drainage Project - NDP II (2000 -2008) was financed by about US$ 143.6 million from the World Bank, KFW, and the European Investment Bank, and a grant from the Netherlands in addition to Government contribution.
The Project managed to install sub-surface drains in about 0.91 million feddans and remodeling of open drains, where needed, of about 0.44 million feddans as well as building institutional capacity of the implementing agency
