Capacity Building for Local Organizations:
ICA has shifted its focus towards building the capacity of the CDAs rather than direct involvement with community residents. Local organizations empowerment could be an important asset within the communities’ livelihood system. The trend of maximizing the role of CDAs in catalyzing local community development process supports this new adopted strategy .ICAs capacity building program includes facilitating and offering training on Organizational Capacity Building, assisting them in implementing development projects to enhance their organizational capacity to be able to respond to community needs. A vital mechanism in ICA’s approach is helping local Organizations to build horizontal and vertical relationships between different stakeholders for the facilitation and integration of efforts. Recently ICA-MENA builds the capacity for many community sectors. “Institutional capacity building for governmental partners” is a new trend for the organization covering different with its different districts govern orates

Based on global trends on the importance of gender balance approach in development process, ICA-MENA has incorporated the gender perspectives as a cross cutting element in all its projects bridging the existing gap.
ICA programs address the gender role in the organization through building the capacity of board members of CDAs on the importance of gender participation in societies in general and in the organization in particular. The programs also includes creating gender awareness, forming and coaching women’s committees inside CDAs to ensure that women receive an equal share of services, and equally participate in all areas of life.

Education track, ICA focuses on continuous leaning and raising awareness among different community groups. The organization adopted many approaches to achieve its goal. “Early Childhood Development” has been an approach that ICA has followed for over the last twenty years to mobilize the children to use their potentials, to explore the surrounding world and provide them with an opportunity to develop their intellectual thinking and physical growth. ICA MENA has developed “ECD” facilitator manuals for preschools teachers and mothers with an adaptation of “Maria Montessori” Methods.
Since 1986 over than 50 schools have benefited form ICA’s “Child to Child” approach that aims to enhance the knowledge and information of children in preventive health care through the transfer of health messages from teachers to students then to younger students till it reaches the children’s families eventually.

Since 1984, ICA MENA has started the “Primary Health Care Program” in Bayad El Arab that targeted rural women. In 1993, the program moved to other villages in Beni Suef. Currently with the improvement of health services, the program shifted it focus to “health awareness raising”, providing training to local organizations on the management of health programs, organizing public workshops in partnership with local organizations, assisting health facilitators in workshops, and consulting mothers through house-to-house visit

ICA has along experience in micro-credit as a source of increasing family income. However, it recently tackles unemployment through preparing people for the job market and creating job opportunities through other means besides credit. One program that ICA presents trains technical education graduates on “start Your Own Business”, training which aims to build entrepreneurial skills, provides vocational training in different areas of specialization. After the training, participants become eligible to receive loans from the CDAs or other financial institutions to start their own business.

ICA has been engaged in revolving loan programs over the last fifteen years in Egypt to assist CDAs to promote income-generating activities for low-income families. It was experimented in two villages in 1985, based on this experimentation in two villages, the role of ICA changed from directly working with beneficiaries to establishing the revolving loans program through existing organizations (CDAs).
The changed role of ICA focus on building the capacity of local organizations through training and providing seeds capital or loan fund for the establishment of the revolving loan program. This scheme has been implemented with more than seventy CDAs in Beni Suef, Aswan and Fayoum.

ICA intervenes in the agricultural with the “Agricultural Extension Program” to improve the yield of farmers and breeders in rural areas. The program provides agricultural and livestock’s skills, knowledge and information that have been one of useful activities. In collaboration with the CDAs, ICA facilitates exchange between farmers, and between agriculture information centers in different areas, organize practical demonstrations in the field and implement demonstration plots. In addition, ICA provides training to village women in poultry rising, animal caretakers, and facilitates workshops on animal husbandry and treatment campaigns in villages. The Livestock Extension program has been considered as a supporting factor to small loans program since many of loan borrowers work in livestock and poultry raising activities.

Within the wide scope of environmental problems and issues facing the globe in general and Egypt in particular, ICA focuses its environmental interventions toward raising community awareness on better utilization of resources, water, energy as an educational activity for children, -women, farmers and community in general. It also helps the local institution to implement projects that are related to environment such as tree planting, solid waste, sanitation, recycling, and agriculture composing, bio-gas and pest control management.

ICA’s views volunteerism as social accountability of each individual based on what he or she can contribute to the development process. ICA believes in the need to enhance the principles of volunteerism among children, through increasing their sense of social responsibility towards their community. ICA has initiated a pioneer project of “Volunteer Child” that formed volunteer groups among children aged between 9-15 in Cairo, Giza and Beni Suef who carried out social services in their local communities such as organizing blood donation campaigns, establishing libraries for the orphanage boarding schools, schools clean up. The program helped to cultivate an important principal, which is the importance of volunteer work among children and their parents.