Twinning Egypt on Health and Safety at Work. Launching the Project

On February 24th, the launching conference of the Twinning Project EG/07/AA/SO/07 “ORGANIZATIONAL MODERNIZATION OF THE OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY (OHS) MANAGEMENT SYSTEM” was held.
The project whose ultimate target is to transfer experiences and operational methods of the Italian Public Administration on health and safety at work to the Egyptian institutions, emphasized the duty to safeguard the fundamental right to protection of workers, namely health at work.
The strategic importance of this topic was highlighted on the day of the conference through a bilateral meeting organized by the two delegations who participated in the event: The Italian delegation represented by the Sub-secretary, Senator Pasquale Viespoli, and the Egyptian delegation represented by the Egyptian Minister of Manpower and Migration, Ms. Aisha Abdel Hady.
In this regard, the first session focussed on the liaison on work cooperation which has proceeded so far owing to the collaboration established by the two countries. Italy is considered one of the most important European partners of Egypt and for this reason, also through the Twinning project and in consideration of its strategic position, it is in charge of the constant sharing of information and solutions in light of future development and new initiatives of collaboration.
During the second session of the ceremony, the Director General of the Ministry of Work, Health and Social Policies, Mr. Umberto Mastropietro, in the role of Project Leader for the Italian counterpart and the Head of Department of the Ministry of Manpower and Migration, Ms. Madiha Abdel Rahman, in the role of Project Leader for the Egyptian counterpart, outlined the project components, the activities implemented so far and the potential development lines. The activities which were embarked on November 2, led to the realization of the first project component and to the start-up of the second. In particular, the first-month activities were characterized by the engagement of the experts in a comparison between the Community, the Italian and the beneficiary country legislations. From this exchange, it emerged that the general principles of the Community regulations on health and safety at work have been substantially included in the Egyptian legislation which now results to be complete.
The ceremony concluded with the appreciation of the Egyptian counterpart who declared to be fully satisfied about the results achieved so far and wished a profitable realization of the rest of the project components. On the Italian part, Senator Viespoli confirmed the priority interest shown by Italy in the project and in its thorough realization.