Despite advances, many Egyptians struggle to feed families

In a desolate desert area in the northern Sinai Peninsula, rows of peach, apricot and almond trees bask under the sun. The plants are part of the Abu Masafir settlement, a Bedouin village established in 2000 as part of a project aimed at fighting food security. "Before, it was like we were dead and buried," says village elder Abu Selim, referring to the time before the settlement project, when his tribe lived nomadically in the desert. "Now – thank God – we can breathe." Egypt, once considered the breadbasket of the ancient world, now cannot meet its domestic food needs, leaving millions of Egyptians unable to feed their families. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 12 percent of the country's population does not consume what it says is the minimum nutritional requirement of 2,100 calories per day. Meanwhile, 15.6 percent of children under the age of five are malnourished. Rates of malnourishment tend to be more pronounced among some of the country's disadvantaged communities, such as the Bedouins of Sinai, where they reach almost 40 percent. The Abu Masafir community is one of the most successful of 63 such sites underway on the arid peninsula. The community's 45 families have received funds from the government to build cement houses, a well and water reservoirs. The government has also built roads and provided electricity. In a "food-for-work" scheme, the WFP is distributing wheat, lentils, oil and sugar to residents at 15 percent of the going rate (and giving it away free to female-headed households), so that residents can have more time for community development. Selum, a 25-year-old mother of five, says that, before the project, she had to make her own wheat flour – a time-consuming process that involves grinding wheat in a stone mortar. "Now, I get flour from the project," she says. "I can spend my time focusing on other work." For example, Selum took advantage of another WFP facility which gave her an LE 1,000 (about US $175) loan with which she bought several goats. The animals provide her with milk and cheese for her children, as well as a moderate income. "It's much better than before," she commented. "Now we have a secure income so we can plan for the future." Abu Masafir residents sell their produce and livestock in the nearby town of al-Arish, where they can earn the equivalent of a few hundred dollars each year with which to buy necessities. But the WFP project will end in December 2006 and residents are worried about their ability to sustain themselves in the future. "The idea of the project is to give support to each beneficiary for three to four years, during which beneficiaries find their own ways to cope with their livelihood and be self-reliant," WFP official Khaled Chatila explains. Only about 20,000 Bedouins have been targeted by the settlement project out of a population of around 180,000 living in Sinai. According to Samir al-Guindy, director of the government-run Sinai Development Project, the situation is much worse for Bedouin tribes living in central Sinai. "They're only eating small loaves of bread and very hard cheese," says al-Guindi. "This was their only food before they joined the project. They haven't eaten meat for a year," al-Guindi points to long waiting lists of families that want to join the other supported communities, but notes that the project lacks the necessary funds to help them all. In Egypt, food insecurity also affects the urban poor, whose rates of malnutrition are similarly high. Dr Essam Ghoneim, who works with the Mabarra Association, an NGO that helps provide healthier meals to schoolchildren, says his association has found "40 to 45 percent anaemia among preschoolers" in the port city of Alexandria. "In slum areas, the percentages rise to more than 60 percent," he adds, explaining that people in these areas eat almost no animal protein or fresh fruit. Malnutrition is also particularly high in the rural areas of southern Egypt, says Suzanne Kamel of the Ministry of Agriculture, who heads a project to settle 16,000 Upper Egyptian families on reclaimed desert land. But, she says, "Thousands still remain landless, jobless and unable to provide for themselves". Overall malnutrition rates have actually fallen in Egypt over the past decade, from 26 percent in 1992 to 15.6 percent now. As a result, the WFP plans to gradually decrease its presence in the country in the next five years because "the situation is likely to be further improved and the Egyptian government should be able to take care of the needy population", explains WFP Egypt Director Bishow Parajuli. "It has been using its resources to help people." In fact, Egypt has an extensive food subsidy system, on which the government spends nearly US $2 billion a year. But, according to the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies, subsidies are often misallocated, with two thirds going to the richest and only one third going to the poorest.