A PARTNERSHIP FOR PROSPERITY

2004 - 2009 Accomplishments

During the past five years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has worked closely with the Government of Egypt and local partners in collaborative efforts to improve the quality of life for all Egyptians.  Progress has been achieved through investments and technical assistance in the areas of education, economic growth, health, water management, agriculture, environment and natural resources, antiquities, and democracy and governance.  In the last thirty years, the U.S. government has contributed over $28 billion in economic assistance to Egypt, including $2 billion since 2004. 

EDUCATION

USAID and the Government of Egypt have worked together to build a more effective school system through programs that improve teaching and learning.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• In seven focus governorates, a 20% improvement over the last three years in how teachers teach and how schools are managed;

• 847,000 teachers taking the first ever teacher proficiency exam, a first step in establishing national standards for the Egyptian teaching profession;

• Significant progress on decentralization of education administration, financing, and decision-making authority to school districts in the governorates of Fayoum, Ismaelia, and Luxor; the GOE chose education as the first sector to undergo decentralization, recognizing progress made in this area;

• Construction of 34 schools to attract increased enrollment by girls in underserved communities, resulting in a total enrollment of 13,600 female students;

• Participation by 16,000 Egyptian primary schools in a school improvement program based on Egyptian national standards;

• Libraries in all 39,000 Egyptian public schools, totaling over 24 million books;

• 921 Egyptian students receiving undergraduate or graduate degrees at U.S. universities and colleges and the American University of Cairo.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

USAID cooperation with the Government of Egypt in the economic growth area has focused on enhancing opportunities for private sector business growth and strengthening the environment for trade and investment.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• Establishment of the Consumer Protection Agency;

• Strengthening of the intellectual property rights regime, contributing to a reduction of the registration time for trademarks from 48 to 12 months (the international standard), and from 60 to 34 months for patents; 

• Development of the mortgage market resulting in the creation of ten mortgage finance companies, LE 2.6 billion in mortgage loans, and an efficient and fully automated mortgage regulator; 

• The electronic cataloguing of the laws and regulations of 12 ministries, and the elimination by the GOE of 1,300 decrees that impede business;

• An increase in tax revenues by 40% in one year as a result of reforming the tax structure, adopting best practices, and streamlining operations;

• A reduction of tariff rates by 50 percent and a 60 percent decrease in the cost of releasing goods from ports, leading to cheaper imported consumer goods and lower costs of imported inputs;

• The establishment of the Smart Services Business Center in Alexandria, streamlining  business and building licensing procedures, and reducing building licensing time from 78 weeks to eight weeks;

• A cumulative 216 percent increase since 2004 in the number of microfinance borrowers to 961,700;  62 percent are female heads of household in disadvantaged areas; microfinance loans grew 213 percent to nearly $250 million;

• $415 million provided to over 296 Egyptian private sector companies to finance imports from the US.

HEALTH

USAID has worked with the Government of Egypt on policies and programs to improve health coverage of underserved populations, and to strengthen the technical and managerial capacity of the health sector.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• Improved family planning and maternal care services through activities such as training, outreach, and facility upgrades, contributing to:

1. Family planning use remaining high at 60 percent,
2. A 13 percent increase in the number of women receiving regular prenatal care,
3. Safe deliveries for almost 80 percent of all mothers, and
4. A continued increase in the number of women spacing their births by three or more years, leading to improved maternal health and survival of children.

• Renovation of 245 health clinics coupled with community participation and education initiatives;

• Support to national health programs, contributing to:

1. A 26 percent reduction in the infant mortality rate,
2. A 31 percent reduction in the children under five mortality rate, and
3. A 16 percent reduction in the mortality rate for women during, or soon after, pregnancy;

• Significant funding for national Polio campaigns, contributing to the eradication of Polio in 2006;
• An increase to 92 percent in immunization coverage against major diseases for all Egyptian children;
• Increased awareness of more than 45,000 university students about the risks and prevention of viral hepatitis; more than 20,000 students received vaccinations against hepatitis B;

• H5N1 (Avian Influenza) outreach and training activities leading to earlier detection of H5N1 cases, resulting in a lower fatality rate;

• Private sector partnerships resulting in more than $12 million in health services and health promotion activities;

• The upgrade of all large hospitals (over 50 beds) and 3,251 clinics to implement the national infection control program.

POTABLE WATER AND SANITATION

Major reforms in the potable water and sanitation sector have directly improved the quality of life of many Egyptians.  USAID has worked with the Government of Egypt on water-related programs with a focus on facility upgrades, private sector participation, training, and improved management systems.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• Improved potable water service for more than five million people living in Alexandria through the installation of 160 kilometers of pipeline and the upgrade of seven water treatment plants;

• Construction of over 30 water and wastewater facilities in Fayoum, Beni Suef, and Minia governorates, benefitting more than three million people;

• Improved water and wastewater services for close to 500,000 people living in Luxor and Aswan;

• Upgraded water and wastewater service for close to 900,000 people living in the major Delta city of Mansoura.

• Far-reaching sector reforms that created a regulatory agency, a semi-autonomous holding company, and regional subsidiaries that are improving customer service, cost recovery, and long term sustainability;

• Improved environment and health conditions in Alexandria and the Mediterranean Sea through expansion of the wastewater collection and treatment system and the elimination of wastewater discharge into the sea;

In the last five years, USAID cooperation with the Government of Egypt in the area of agricultural assistance has focused on Upper Egypt, home to 50 percent of Egypt's poor.  Programs aimed to improve smallholder productivity and competitiveness. In addition, improved water resource management has benefitted the agriculture sector.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• The creation of more than 100 horticultural producer associations with more than 20,000 producers receiving training in new techniques; average net farmer income among association members has doubled over four years;

• Improved livestock and dairy marketing through the creation of 67 livestock producer associations; net income among participating farmers almost doubled over two years;

• University linkage programs with agriculture faculties and veterinary medicine schools in Upper Egypt to update course curricula in technical subjects, improve classroom equipment, train more than 450 professors, and provide career development assistance to students;

• Development of an Egyptian National Authority for Bio-Safety through which farmers are trained in the safe use and benefits of agricultural biotechnology;

• Integrated water management districts covering 1.2 million feddans - 15 percent of Egypt's irrigated land - to integrate all water management functions into a single system for better management of scarce water resources;

• Formation of 600 Water Users' Associations involving 500,000 water users in 27 districts, allowing Egyptian farmers to participate for the first time in the management of irrigation systems, sharing in canal and structure maintenance, conducting public awareness programs, and resolving conflicts.

ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES

USAID and the Government of Egypt have worked together on programs related to the re-location of lead smelters away from residential areas, decontamination of original smelter areas, introduction of cleaner fuels for local transit systems, and environmental protection.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

•  A 75% reduction in lead pollution levels in Cairo's densely populated Shoubra El Kheima area;

•  Increased use of compressed natural gas in Cairo, a cleaner fuel for public transportation; USAID provided 50 compressed natural gas municipal transit buses;

•  Reduction in the damage to Egypt's Red Sea coral reef through improved monitoring programs and the installation of more than 800 mooring buoys to minimize damage by dive boat anchors;

• Activities along the Red Sea in Wadi El-Gemal National Park that promote conservation and protect biodiversity, improve environmental and land use management, develop sustainable tourism, and improve the quality of life and income-generating opportunities of local Bedouin communities.

ANTIQUITIES

Working with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, USAID supports conservation programs that preserve Egypt's extensive and unique historical sites.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• Groundwater lowering projects at the Luxor and Karnak Temples that saved these world-renowned monuments from major damage;

• Architectural conservation of a unique concentration of monuments in Old Cairo, including the Roman fortress of Babylon, the first mosque in Africa, an important group of Christian churches, and a Jewish synagogue and library;

• Conservation of the third and fourth century monasteries of St. Anthony and St. Paul,  including restoration of the interior of the church at St. Anthony to its 13^th-century appearance;

• Conservation of important sites at Bab Zuwayla in medieval Cairo, resulting in revived tourism in the area.

• Restoration of the world's earliest surviving free-standing masonry building at Abydos, one of Egypt's most important archaeological sites;

• The building of structures to protect two tombs in the Valley of the Kings from flash floods.

USAID works with the Government of Egypt and Egyptian civil society on programs aimed at strengthening the administration of justice and improving access to justice for women and disadvantaged groups; promoting decentralization of fiscal, political and administrative governance; promoting more competitive and transparent electoral processes; and strengthening the organizational and advocacy capabilities of civil society organizations.  USAID is proud to have helped the Government of Egypt achieve the following milestones:

• Reduced opportunities for corruption and increased transparency and operational efficiency in 13 of Egypt's 29 governorates through the successful piloting of court automation in eight courts throughout the country, and development of the software which allowed the Government of Egypt to independently automate an additional five courts. 

• Providing legal and professional training to 3,000 judges and staff, including a comprehensive training program for the first female judges ever appointed to the Courts of First Instance; 

• Improvement of mediation and counseling services through training for mediation staff and family court judges, and grants to local non-governmental organizations, collectively benefitting approximately 16,000 children and 8,700 families;

• Training 600 of the nation's 4,000 prosecutors on defendants' legal rights and developing a legal data base and a handbook on the right to counsel for use by prosecutors nationwide, helping to ensure that new legislation is meaningfully implemented;

• Production of a national strategy for decentralization, and implementation of pilot models in Assiut, Qena, and Beheira governorates to increase local revenues and citizen involvement;

• Supporting more than 100 joint community-local government initiatives to solve local problems and providing civic education and leadership training to more than 47,000 women, students and youth across the country;

• Protecting human rights through the establishment of Child Protection Committees in all 29 governorates across the country, a nationwide human rights education campaign and the distribution of 180,000 children's books on human rights;

• Provision of training to more than 2,000 media professionals combined with strengthening six media training institutions in Cairo;

• Increasing access to local news and information, through launching of the country's first weekly supplement in a national paper in Alexandria, and increasing readership of a local paper by 50% in Minya; and

• Developing a trained cadre of more than 13,000 local election observers nationwide and supporting the issuance of 1,250 national identification and voting cards to facilitate citizen participation in national and local elections.