Egypt—Economic Governance Activity (EGA)

The Government of Egypt has achieved an encouraging degree of macroeconomic stabilization in the past several years, coupled with regulatory, policy, and civil service reforms to create space for private sector growth. Yet, Egypt’s economic governance reforms must be broader and deeper if it is to achieve its development vision of improving public welfare by creating enough quality jobs to meet the massive demographic challenge it now faces. The reforms must strengthen a weak institutional framework and begin to reverse socioeconomic inequities.

The Egypt Economic Governance Activity (EGA) works with the government to support the country’s investment climate by strengthening inclusive governance and supporting the government’s structural reform program.

EGA assists with Egypt’s economic and good governance reforms by:

• Supporting the reform process.
• Building capacity in public administration, including rolling out anticorruption training across the government at all levels of the civil service.
• Improving local service delivery, with an emphasis on innovative e-governance.

Together, these efforts should increase participation and inclusion in Egypt’s governance reforms, enhance the transparency and accountability of government services, improve government effectiveness, and combat corruption—all of which will boost Egypt’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign investment. DAI’s “sustainable reform” approach to EGA promotes multilevel sustainability by applying a nuanced understanding of the political economy and a management stance that supports government actors from behind the scenes.

Sample Activities

• Support the government’s performance management database through the development of a data collection and verification system.
• Identify, develop, and implement assistance for reforms.
• Develop and roll out content for anti-corruption training courses, including digital courses.
• Work with government counterparts to utilize customer feedback and data regarding service performance to identify opportunities to scale effective service models.

Select Results

• Supported the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and the National Council for Women in the creation of the Governance Excellence Award for Equal Opportunity and Empowerment of Women. EGA developed a manual for the application and selection process and a training program for potential applicants.
• Supported the Central Agency for Organization and Administration to develop an interactive online learning management system that enhances the management and delivery of capacity-building programs for civil servants.
• Trained, with the Central Agency for Organization and Administration, 8,500 civil servants on topics such as assuming responsibility in the civil service, stress management, and leading moderate and objective analysis.
• With the Information Technology Industry Development Agency, launched iHub to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Egypt, particularly among youth. Under this program, Egyptian startups benefit from subject-specific mentorship and hands-on venture-building support.
• Graduated 29 startups from the second cohort of the Plug and Play Innovation Hub in Cairo. Cohort startups received extensive training and focused mentorship with the support of local, regional, and international experts. EGA will support four more cohorts over the next two years.
• Launched, with the Central Agency for Organization and Administration, an AI-based chatbot for Egypt’s civil service. The Chatbot, named “KMT” after an ancient name of Egypt, is the first of its kind in Egypt’s civil service and promotes transparency and access to information for all civil servants.