It aims to enhance research capacity, to improve research quality, and to ensure that the findings are utilized. To this end, the program promotes a research agenda that is responsive to the needs and priorities of the local communities, particularly those in Upper Egypt, and to the needs of marginalized sectors of the population.

The Egyptian program is characterized by its multidisciplinary nature, its demand driven research responding directly to questions of relevance to local communities, and its geographical orientation towards relatively disadvantaged areas of Egypt.

The program has been conceptualized and is supervised and coordinated by an independent body of distinguished Egyptian experts and researchers. This group constitutes the Advisory Board, and from which the Steering Committee is elected.
The Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo undertook the responsibility for implementing the program.