Related Articles
Amr Kandil – Ahram Online
Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have launched an economic empowerment project on Sunday. It aims to enhance access for Egyptian youth and women to appropriate jobs with sustainable wages.
The ILO’s project, dubbed ‘Egypt Youth Employment: Economic Empowerment under Forsa Programme’, is funded by the Norwegian government.
The project is part of the social protection programme ‘Forsa’, launched by the Ministry in 2017. ‘Forsa’ mainly targets working age members of needy households and disabled people included or almost included in the conditional cash transfer program ‘Takaful wa Karama’.
“The Egypt Youth Employment: Economic Empowerment program seeks to enhance the capabilities of partner institutions and civil society organisations in fields related to youth and women empowerment”, Nashwa Belal, director of the project said.
“It includes supporting freelance work for women and youth, and empowering society to back entrepreneurship projects”, Belal added.
The signing was attended by Egyptian Social Solidarity Minister Niveen al-Qabbaj, Director of the ILO office in Cairo Eric Oechslin, and Norwegian Ambassador to Egypt Lene Lind.
Al-Qabbaj said, “women’s participation in the labour market certainly helps improve the life conditions of families financially and culturally”.
ILO’s Oechslin expects the project to contribute to responding to the coronavirus’ economic and social impacts which affected many sectors of society.
Ambassador Lind affirmed Norway’s “keenness to back the Egyptian government in enhancing economic development as a part of its commitments to contribute to achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals”.
