For over four decades, the American people have invested in Egyptians through USAID. Our current programs in economic growth, education, health, and governance are partnering to improve lives and build a more inclusive and globally competitive economy.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Egypt’s private sector has enormous untapped potential to advance economic growth with less than 20% of working-age women participating in the formal economy compared to 75% of men. USAID creates jobs, stimulates entrepreneurship, improves the workforce, and enhances trade. In just the last year, we supported over 550 small and medium enterprises and helped small businesses—including agribusinesses—generate almost $29 million in additional export revenue. We empowered over 87,000 students with enhanced skills to find jobs, increased employment and invested in new opportunities for women. Agriculture contributes over 11 percent of Egypt’s gross domestic product, accounts for one-third of all jobs, and remains dominated by small farms. To leverage this potential, we supported nearly 47,000 agriculturalists over the past year, including more than 13,000 women. Tourism is Egypt’s third largest source of foreign currency behind exports and remittances, and USAID invests to ensure that communities profit from tourism and see the benefits of protecting cultural heritage and the Red Sea coast. We also built on legacy investments in the water sector by expanding access to clean water and sanitation in Upper Egypt for nearly 200,000 people in underserved communities.
EDUCATION
Egypt has the largest school system in the Middle East with gender parity, near universal primary enrollment, and robust universities. We collaborate with the Ministry of Education and Technical Education to advance reforms and improve learning outcomes through online teacher training and updated teacher professional standards, licensure, accreditation and merit based-compensation for Egypt’s 1.2 million teachers. We recently partnered to establish 20 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools serving Egypt’s most talented, and we support community schools for out-of-school children and adult literacy for their mothers. With the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, we advance Egypt’s National Higher Education Strategy 2030 to modernize the sector, and are preparing university students with marketable skills while fostering applied research to solve market and development challenges. We partner with Egyptian public universities to modernize degree programs and implement the largest U.S. Government scholarship program in the world. Our work links students and employers through 37 new university career centers and empowers students with disabilities by creating disability service centers at 20 public universities.
HEALTH
USAID partners with the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) to expand and strengthen voluntary family planning and reproductive health services and build capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to global public health threats. More than half of all Egyptians are under the age of 25. We support the MOHP to provide voluntary family planning services through youth networks, the private sector, community health workers, and healthcare providers. Together with MOHP over the last year, we empowered more than 300 nurses to provide family planning to over 375,000 women in 257 rural primary health care units. USAID trained over 6,000 private-practice physicians and pharmacists on family planning and, through 1,000 MOHP community health workers, we reinforced healthy family planning practices with a focus on gender dynamics. Our family planning messaging, developed in close coordination with the Government of Egypt, reached more than 70 million people in the last year. USAID fosters One Health links between human, animal, and environmental health, and recently advanced Egypt’s national immunization cold chain system with 1,700 freezers, four walk-in cold rooms, nearly 20 million syringes, and 250,000 safety boxes. Through USAID funded programs in 250 public, university, and private facilities this year, more than 7,500 healthcare workers enhanced their ability to deliver clinical care and improved infection prevention and control.
GOVERNANCE
USAID strengthens governance systems, partners to address corruption, reduces violence against women and girls, and increases economic participation and social empowerment for women and vulnerable communities. USAID supported over 150 champions of change to lead intercommunity dialogues to advance the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and counter gender inequity. We supported new Internal Control and Governance Units to enhance transparency, accountability, and integrity in 134 central and local public institutions. In the last year, we trained over 500 service providers, lawyers, and religious leaders to support survivors of violence. We support Egypt’s first national girls’ empowerment initiative addressing gender inequality as a root cause of violence and other harmful practices, and partner to train girls in digital literacy. We work with the private sector to advance workplace equity, and for the first time, seven major employers received the Egyptian Gender Equity Seal honoring their ongoing commitment to improve equity and women-friendly policies.
