Generation Next – Building Egypt’s Knowledge Economy

27 June 2021

H.E Minister of International Cooperation, Dr. Rania Al Mashat

Ms. Malinne Bloomberg Deputy Director General North Africa, AfDB

Mr. Hassan El Attas, Director General of Operation and Head of the Saudi Grant Management Committee, SFD

Mr. Ihab Fikry, Founder and CEO of Almentor.net

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is an honour for me to participate in this Generation Next Event with a focus on Building Egypt’s Knowledge Economy and share this panel with distinguished participants.

Ladies and gentlemen, first of all allow me to congratulate the Ministry of International Cooperation and H.E Minister of International Cooperation, Ms. Rania Mashat for organizing this event today to showcase Egypt’s booming tech startup ecosystem.

Let me also remind the audience that today, June 27th, is the international celebration of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Day (MSMEs). Most of tech-startups at least start off and remain to large extent as MSMEs. Hence, this event provides an excellent avenue for us to celebrate the MSMEs and their significant contributions to our societies in an increasingly digitalized world.

I would like to raise three points today to address the questions raised by the moderator.

Firstly, let us take a moment to appreciate the incredible progress made in the tech startup scene of Egypt already.

This progress is the reflection of the enormous possibilities when Egypt’s biggest untapped potential -its young talented work force- meets the right enabling environment created by the Government and partners. Speakers before me highlighted some of these achievements already, with Egyptian startups maintained the first position in terms of getting the highest number of deals in the MENA region last year. But more can be done to make Egypt from a regional top-payer to a global front-runner.

This brings me to my second point, we need to put our collective focus on how the tech startup progress can address some of the long-standing challenges of Egyptian Economy and in turn promote SDGs.

Despite, the impact of Covid-19, the unemployment levels in Egypt dropped to 7.2 % by end of year last year.  UN’s analysis of CAPMAS employment data suggests it is the under-30 age group that posted the biggest recovery in terms of employment numbers. It is safe to assume that technology and tech startups played an important role in this recovery.

The active tech ecosystem addresses two fundamental challenges of the Egypt’s economy. Egypt’s economy has not been generating adequate number of quality jobs for its growing population. Especially the young people were always at a disadvantage in the Egyptian labour market. The unemployment rates among youth is more than three times that of national average, while over 80% of youth who are employed are in precarious employment. The tech entrepreneurship provides an avenue for youth to find jobs and generate jobs that matches their skills. However, I believe more policy support is needed to ensure that the jobs generated under the tech startups are decent jobs that guarantees labour rights, unemployment insurance and access to pension system.

Another related challenge is that of widening digital divides. There are worrying signals of widening digital divides in terms of access to digital technologies and digital skills, especially in the context of COVID-19 induced rapid digitalization. This can exacerbate pre-existing inequalities in terms of aspects such as gender and geography. In this context, how can we work together to ensure that tech-start ups become an avenue for inclusive digitalization in Egypt ?

In my recent field visit to villages in Luxor, I visited the community smart schools/hubs that WFP and the GOE supports through a package of education and community knowledge and service delivery. I was impressed at the Smart Screens, the tablets, and the ease with which teachers and students alike used these resources. Such initiatives starting at the village level to strengthen the ICT infrastructure and skills are really the bedrock of inclusive digitalization and tech startup ecosystem in Egypt.

Now the question is what we can do to scale-up the success.  This brings me to my final point today.

Partnerships and policy guidance are key to unlock the potential of the tech startup ecosystem and digitalization in an inclusive manner.

Government policies should signal this sector as a priority area of investment. More national and international financing should target this promising sector in Egypt. I am glad to note that ICT has been identified as one of the three pillars of the National Structural Reform Program 2021-2024. At the same time, policy signals to tech startups can guide their focus towards SDGs and help transform themselves to ‘sustainable tech startups’.  Tech startups working and contributing to SDGs can be identified at the ideation stages, incubated and helped to scale up with priority financing support.  

I am happy to share that, UN and development partners in Egypt are already at the forefront of supporting directly the tech entrepreneurs and contributing towards creating an enabling tech ecosystem.

In 2020, UN in Egypt through UNDP supported the establishment of 233 tech startups, providing support to 247 tech MSMEs at various stages of growth in cooperation with the Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center. We supported the creation of 3,366 jobs in cooperation with the Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center and delivered training of more that 300,000 entrepreneurs on different ICT technologies and entrepreneurship in cooperation with MCIT, ITI and TIEC. 

UNIDO, in cooperation with Industrial Modernization Centre of Ministry of Trade and Industry, supported the establishment of a Creative Hub that offers services to startups and entrepreneurs in the areas of design and products development, equipped with digital fabrication machines including 3D printers. UN Women has developed training content on how to use technology enablers for women entrepreneurs across the different sectors, which will be available online through the Egypt Innovate Platform.

At the policy level, ITU is currently working with the MCIT in Egypt on a gap analysis on the digital innovation ecosystem in Egypt. 

Ladies and gentlemen, there are less than 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the world is in the midst of a global pandemic that is setting back progress.  Unleashing the power of new ideas, promoting technology and innovation and embracing a sustainable transformation is our only pathway for a better recovery. ‘Sustainable Tech startups’ can be a game changer in this process.

Let me conclude, by saying that UN system stands ready to partners with all relevant stakeholders to scale up the success stories of tech-entrepreneurship of Egypt to become a global success story.

I look forward to our discussions.