 The Mega-Cities Project sought to encourage the Zabbaleen system of waste collection and recycling as a model to be encouraged in other developing world cities such as Manila and Mumbai.The Zabbaleen waste collection system has received international funding from the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and Oxfam for specific projects to upgrade and improve the recycling of solid waste.In 2003, the government of Egypt sold annual contracts reaching US$50 million to international companies to collect Cairo's solid waste.