Real community development starts from its roots in rural areas. NVD has been actively engaged in rural development since its establishment in year 2000.

NVD is committed to reducing rural poverty, particularly in remote areas in Upper Egypt and aims to improve the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas.

NVD with participation of the rural people are working at finding the ways to improve the rural lives so as to meet the required need of the rural areas. The purpose of NVD participatory approaches is to enable community members to make informed choices and decisions for their community development.

Rural development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of land-intensive natural resources such as agriculture. However, changes in global production networks and increased urbanization have changed the character of rural areas. Increasingly tourism, niche manufacturers, and recreation have replaced resource extraction and agriculture as dominant economic drivers.

The need for rural communities to approach development from a wider perspective has created more focus on a broad range of development goals rather than merely creating incentive for agricultural or resource based businesses. Education, entrepreneurship, physical infrastructure, and social infrastructure all play an important role in developing rural areas.

More than 90% of NVD actions are targeting rural areas. Different initiatives and programs such as micro credit, women’s group lending, human skills development, poverty alleviation, increased agricultural productivity, provision of clean water and sanitation facilities, environment protection and reduction of air pollution are all working towards development of target rural areas.

Currently, NVD is implementing a large rural development action that aims to contribute to the improvement of sustainable livelihood of impoverished rural communities through better access and usage optimization of local resources. With action, NVD will work to strengthen the capabilities of local communities and institutions for better management of agriculture technologies, techniques and practices applicable to agricultural production, processing and commercialisation in the Egyptian agricultural sector.