Country
Egypt
Local Project Partner
Central Bank of Egypt
German Project Partner
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Donor
Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Duration
01.11.2023 - 31.05.2025
Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world and the third most populous country on the African continent. It is estimated that around 70% of the Egyptian population is either poor or at risk of poverty and around 55% of the labour force works in the informal sector. With 34%, Egypt has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. 800,000 young Egyptians enter the labour market every year and 90% of the unemployed are under 30 years old. Some 26 million young people aged 10-24 make up around a quarter of Egypt's total population. Despite numerous reform programmes, the banking sector is dominated by public banks. The incentives for small companies and households to utilise deposits and other financial services are weak. The minimum deposits required are too high to give the poorer sections of the population access to the banking system.
Financial inclusion is considered one of the most important pillars for realising a number of goals in Egypt's national development strategy. The government's agenda (Egypt Vision 2030) primarily aims to create a competitive and diversified economy in order to achieve economic and social justice through financial inclusion. The CBE is the main driving force behind this. The project aims to reduce structural inequalities in order to enable equal opportunities and to help shape the socio-ecological transformation of the financial sector. Equal participation of all people - with a particular focus on women and girls - in economic life by fundamentally strengthening their sustainable access to financial services and financial knowledge is an essential basis for this.
Tasks:
The project aims to support the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in implementing the financial inclusion strategy through needs-based financial education measures for women and young people. Selected organisations are to be strengthened in their ability to design and implement needs-based offers to improve financial education.
