Capacity Building for the Urban Ulanning Sector in Egypt

Cairo, 21 March 2023 – Hadeer and her colleagues in the urban planning sector now can deal with stress and manage their time for a more balanced life.

"I learnt how to analyse and plan my time to best manage my daily stress. I have already started applying what we learnt during the first day of the training and began setting my annual and secondary goals, with a time plan," Hadeer, an engineer, explained when asked about the actual benefits of the time and stress management training and its real-life implications.

Hadeer is one of 4.8 million women working in Egypt, struggling to balance their multiple roles. Egyptian women are increasingly representing a significant portion of the local workforce. The percentage of female employees in the local government sector increased from 39% in 2014 to 45% in 2021.

Although such rising numbers are promising for gender equity local targets, many working women in Egypt face tremendous pressure to balance between their careers and extensive family, parenting and household responsibilities. Such interrelation of women’s work and family roles creates tremendous continuous stress on many Egyptian women that negatively impact their daily lives.

To address such a rising problem, UN-Habitat, in cooperation with the General Organization for Physical Planning in Egypt organised a two-day training on time and stress management. It was attended by 17 female employees working in the urban planning sector.

Through a range of interactive activities, female participants learnt how to address different types of stress effectively in addition to prioritising their daily tasks. The training is part of ongoing series of capacity-building activities under a project aiming to strengthen development planning and management in Greater Cairo. Sustaining the local women workforce by presenting them with such self-development opportunities is expected to yield a multitude of benefits that extends across the work environment and positively impact women's daily lives.

The project ensures drafting and continued effective implementation of the strategic vision for Greater Cairo and contribute to its realisation through the development of priority projects, participatory processes, capacity building and supported legal frameworks.

The capacity building programme aims to introduce new/innovative urban planning tools and skills development sets to enable effective implementation of the project and support effective urban sector at the central and local levels, expected to benefit seventy trainees.

Source:<https://unhabitat.org/news/21-mar-2023/capacity-building-for-the-urban-planning-sector-in-egypt>