Project profile — Women’s Economic Empowerment for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth in Egypt

• Egypt (100.00%)

• Government And Civil Society, General: Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (49.96%)
• Other Social Infrastructure And Services: Employment policy and administrative management (16020) (16.66%)
• Business And Other Services: Business support services and institutions (25010) (16.72%)
• Industry: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) development (32130) (16.66%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project aims to support women’s economic empowerment in Egypt, where women's unemployment is more than three times that of men. Women in Egypt face significant barriers to securing decent work, as well as limited access to financial and non-financial services, discriminatory social norms, and lack of access to social protection or support services. The project works to help create jobs by improving the business-enabling environment, and promoting a culture of entrepreneurship for Egyptian women in high growth sectors such as agribusiness and energy. This project is implemented by UN Women in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Project activities include: (1) providing technical training and advisory services to women-led businesses; (2) supporting the establishment of innovative and green businesses; (3) supporting businesses to mainstream gender in supply chains, review policies and implement new ones that empower women; and (4) supporting women-owned enterprises to access alternative financing. The project expects to reach up to 6,300 direct beneficiaries and approximately 30,000 indirect beneficiaries.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased productivity and job opportunities generated by women entrepreneurs; (2) increased employment of women by businesses; and (3) reduced gender-specific barriers to women’s entrepreneurship and women entering into and remaining in the workforce.

Results achieved as of March 2024 include: (1) continued building, strengthening, and fostering partnerships in Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE); (2) provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Finance on innovative financing tools with a special focus on gender-responsive bonds under Egypt's Sovereign Sustainable Financing Framework; (3) supported gender-responsive budgeting intervention in collaboration with 10 other ministers, including Ministry of Finance, Ministries of Planning and Economic Development, Labour, Education and Technical Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research, Culture, Transportation, Trade and Industry, Youth and Sports, and Social Solidarity; (4) enhanced the capacity of the Ministry of Social Solidarity to address paid and unpaid care work by strengthening the “Working Women’s Service Centers”, and operationalizing the domestic workers manual. The manual is the first of its kind in the Arab region. (5) trained 10 local government employees who directly handle the training of domestic assistants; (6) developed a Standard Operating Procedures manual, which will be adopted in all centers for managing food, as well as health and safety standard; (7) supported knowledge transfer to the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development on green businesses; (8) leveraged the micro, small and medium enterprise development agency’s technical mandate to co-implement several capacity building activities; (9) supported the Agency’s mobile business development unit at Turathna Exhibition and jointly delivered UNIDO’s HP-LIFE (Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs) green entrepreneurship and circular economy trainings to beneficiaries; (10) provided technical assistance on the gender equity seal to more than 22 high growth private companies; (11) launched the digitized course “Heya Raeda” for early-stage women entrepreneurs, in partnership with the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center; (12) delivered a Gender and Sustainable Development online course to civil servants; (13) assisted 1397 women job seekers in honing their technical and employability skills, out of which 211 women were trained on post-harvest skills for date palms and medicinal plants in Beni Suef, Fayoum and Minya. This resulted in a 79% employment rate amongst this group; (14) mobilized an International Entrepreneurship Expert from UNIDO Tunisia to provide consultations to 3 ministries (Industry, Youth and Sports and Local Development) on their strategic needs and priorities for support service delivery in 2024; and (15) delivered a 5-day training of trainers workshop in partnership with the Canada-funded project, Opportunities for Women in Agribusiness (OWAP) implemented by Alinea International, to promote gender equality across 25 private-sector companies.

• Proactive disclosure