The Egypt Household Natural Gas Connections project aims to connect 1.5 million Egyptian households to natural gas lines for cooking fuel. The total cost of the project is just under $1.5 billion, of which the World Bank contributed $500 million in 2014 through an investment lending operation.
This large project covers eleven governorates in Egypt, with 1.5 million targeted beneficiary households. World Bank and government officials have touted the project as directly targeting poor and middle-class families and especially beneficial to women who will have access to safer, more efficient, and more affordable cooking fuel. The Bank also claimed high levels of support for the project among beneficiaries. However, it was not clear from Bank documents how communities would be systematically engaged and informed about the project on such a large scale.
