Egypt’s recovery since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 has been dogged and filled with instability.  They’ve experienced rolling power blackouts and have not been able to secure aid to help lift the country’s poor out of poverty in a meaningful way.  However, over the last six months or so all of this has begun to change.  The Abu Dhabi based Khalifa Fund has pledged to support Egypt with a $200 million loan.  This loan will provide major job opportunity and will help raise people in Egypt out of poverty and off of state welfare.

In November of last year the Khalifa Fund agreed to the loan which will be focused on development of the microfinance sector and aims to promote women entrepreneurship, thereby reducing poverty.  Hussain Al Nowais and many others have been saying for a long time now that promoting women in the economy is critical to reducing poverty and achieving the desired results as quickly as possible.

The loan is planned to benefit over 200,000 enterprises and eventually create more than 200,000 jobs for Egyptian citizens.  As it stands currently, roughly 60% of youth and women are below the poverty line in Egypt.  Raising them out of poverty and providing them with opportunity can reignite the Egyptian economy and give it the boost to return to the region as a central player, economically.  Other groups are stepping up to aid Egypt as well such as the KBBO group, UAE firm Dana Gas and Islamic Trade Finance Corporation.

These investments in Egypt will provide the necessary funding required to help establish new factories and infrastructure which can then hire workers and provide them with real living wages.  A number of investments are also happening for the construction of clean coal fired power plants in order to restore the nation’s energy grid to a more stable and reliable level.  Recent black out waves have plagued the country, particularly in the summer, making it difficult for business and companies to work reliably.  As these deals are implemented and funding begins to flow, Egypt will begin to find normalcy again and be able to positively contribute to the region.