Overall objective:
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the sustainable use of wild medicinal plants through the adoption of renewable energy technology.
Links local village producers to the National Research Center Through technical assistance and training.

Specific objectives:

-Increases the income of local farmers by enabling them to improve the product quality and the productivity of the dehydration process.
- Provides employment opportunities for women, through backward linkages with labor-intensive post-harvest activities.
-Provides an economically sustainable local production base for the replication for this technology
-Builds the capacity of local craftsman to replicate this technology in local villages and incorporates their local production techniques in SADT design.


Promotion of sustainable desert development by:
- The use of solar water heaters, biogas, passive solar architecture and planting different types of trees;
- Conservation of indigenous medicinal plants and micro-organisms;
- Use of sprinkler and drip irrigation;
- Spreading awareness among the Wadi El Natrun community through audio visual activities, meetings and brain storming sessions held on site where project achievements and problems faced will be discussed.

The project fulfills the objectives of the GEF, because it:

- Provides a safe alternative to hot air dryers commonly used to dehydrate crops, which use fossil fuels and produce harmful emissions.
- Builds the capacity of local craftsmen to replicate this technology in local villages, and incorporates their local production techniques in SADT design.
- Increases the income of local farmers by enabling them to improve product quality and productivity of their dehydratation process.
- Links local village producers to the National Research Center through technicla assistance and training.
- Promotes the sustainable use of wild medicinal plant crops, by reducing post-harvest losses contributing to the preservation of bio-diversity of the ecosystem.
- Provides an economically sustainable local production base for the replication of this technology.
- Provides employment oppotunities for women, through backward linkages with labor-intensive post-harvest activities