The Egyptian government is a strong proponent of renewable energy generally, including biomass energy. Egypt has accumulated a considerable amount of experience and expertise with modern renewable technologies as a result of avid national and international promotion of renewables. Egyptian government has endeavoured to explore and exploit its considerable solar and wind resources, making Egypt a showcase for large-scale (multi-megawatt) PV and wind power for grid connected demonstrations - such as those at Hurghada, Zafarana, and El Korimat. The Egyptian government has resolved to implement sufficient renewable energy to supply 5% of primary energy by 2005, under the authority of the New and Renewable Energy Agency. The objective of this project is to remove the technical, institutional, information, financial, and other market barriers to the increasing use of biomass energy in promoting sustainable rural development in Egypt and in reducing the negative global and local environmental impacts associated with the use of fossil fuels and the environmentally not sound management of the agricultural and solid waste. This is envisaged to be achieved by (i) testing the technical and, in particular, the economic and financial feasibility of selected bioenergy technologies on the basis of new business and financing models, and developing further the financial, institutional and market strategies for their large-scale replication; (ii) supporting the development and adoption of an enabling policy framework to implement and leverage financing for the recommended strategies; iii) building the capacity of the supply side to market, finance and deliver rural bioenergy services; and iv) institutionalizing the support provided by the project to facilitate sustainable growth of the market after the end of the project.