Supporting inclusive employment in Egypt’s ICT sector

Situation

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector is a key driver in Egypt’s economic plans, including its vision 2030. As a fast-growing sector, it has the potential to create many sustainable jobs in Egypt for a broad cross-section of society, thus achieving inclusive growth.

Project

Supported by the European Union, the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) and the Federation of Egyptian Industry/Environmental Compliance Office (FEI/ECO) aimed to analyze the gaps between Egyptian businesses’ needs and the skills of the workforce in order to enable a dialog on new initiatives to increase employability and thus employment. In addition, the partners had a focus on inclusion of marginalized groups in the ICT sector, including youth and women, and improvement of the enabling environment for employers.

Voluntas Impact

In support of the project, Voluntas Policy Advisory supported the project through a needs assessment of job seekers and companies with up to 250 employees in the Egyptian ICT sector. Voluntas designed and analyzed a set of surveys for both students and employers in the ICT sector to identify the extent and character of the gap between labor supply and demand.

The assessment moreover identified constraints to entrepreneurship and doing business from the perspectives of both potential and actual entrepreneurs – including the barriers to female employment within the ICT sector. Finally, Voluntas supported the development of recommendations on practical policy changes to support future employment opportunities.