The online start-up workshop presented the "Building a COVID-19 Rapid Response and Ag-Foresight Department in Egypt" project’s activities and future plans, including collaborative discussion and brainstorming with stakeholders on the most relevant issues and policies in the agricultural sector’s resilience during COVID-19.

1. This project is funded
by the European Union
Planning Workshop
Building A Covid-19 Rapid Response & Agricultural-Foresight Department In Egypt
Building the Digital Transformation Unit of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
Dr. Mohamed El Kersh
Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
February 2nd, 2021

2. Overview
• Presidential decree to establish Digital Transformation Units in all
ministries in order to implement a digitalized government workflow.
• Digital transformation units are important pillars of the Government
of Egypt’s comprehensive administrative reform process, especially
with the planned move of key part of the government to the New
Administrative Capital (NAC).
• The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation has ordered the
establishment of a digital transformation unit within the MOALR by
the decree of the Minister of Communication and Information
Technology number 605 on 15th March 2020.

3. Structure of the Unit
Digital Transformation Unit
(AG-DTU)
Workflow and Government
Services
(WGS)
Geographical Information
System (GIS)
Foresight and Policy
Advisory
(AG-FORESIGHT)
Minister's office

4. Action Plan
• DTU will be directly under the supervision of the Minister with an
initial number of staff of 16 experts.
• These experts were carefully selected and have specific skills and a
strong background in areas such as IT, GIS and agricultural
economics.
• DTU will be based in the new MOALR building in the new capital.
MOALR is dedicating significant resources to the DTU, but is also
seeking additional resources from international partners to
support the establishment of the unit and short-, medium- and
longer-term support and capacity building of its staff.

5. Ag-FORESIGHT support to MALR
Objective: AG-FORESIGHT will provide high quality decision support to the Minister and provide rapid response
and longer-term strategic advice to the Minister and his advisors based on the most advanced desktop and
digital data and tools.
Current project with EU and IFPRI is an important first step:
Component1: Establishment of foresight team and provision of equipment (laptops, software)
Component 2: Model-based rapid response to COVID-19 and trainings
Component 3: Digital database for agricultural production and trade statistics in Egypt
The AG-FORESIGHT team will work closely together with the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University and
establish a Memorandum of Understanding.
Longer-term plans (2022-2025):
• During 2022-2025 the unit will be equipped with state of the art agronomic and socio-economic foresight
models that are based on the digital database.
• Team members are enabled to update and modify the foresight models through capacity building with
“embedded” experts and joint research. Team members are enabled to produce high quality planning,
forecasting and policy advice.