Even before the recent turbulence in Egypt, young people faced the daunting obstacle of soaring unemployment. In 2010, 9 out of 10 unemployed Egyptians were under 30 years old, and young women faced especially bleak job prospects. After the Arab Spring in 2011, the situation became worse.

The Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance and the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. (AKF USA) joined together to help Egyptians face these challenges with a program called Head Start! for Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. This marked Aga Khan Development Network’s (AKDN) first U.S. government grant for programs in Egypt, where AKDN has over three decades of experience. The project combined the expertise of the First MicroFinance Foundation Egypt (FMF-E), the country’s only microfinance institution providing start-up business loans, and the Aga Khan Foundation, Egypt (AKF,E), with its experience implementing holistic social development programs.

Improving Youth Access to Training Programs in Egypt

As a two-year project, Head Start! set out to improve youths’ access to vocational training that could improve their employability, and supply funds to start their own small businesses. The project also supported capacity building of community organizations that worked with youth and other groups in Darb Al-Ahmar, a poor neighborhood in Cairo.

Serving young men and women in low-income neighborhoods where the Aga Khan Development Network has been active for years, the project achieved remarkable milestones amid difficult circumstances, and exceeded many of its goals. For example, where the project aimed to create 2,000 job opportunities, it surpassed that target by 10 percent. The project helped 1,277 Egyptians to gain marketable skills as a result of U.S.-funded workforce development, and surpassed that target by over 5 percent.

The project also identified key challenges that startup enterprises face in Egypt during times of such political and economic instability, including market instability, increased startup costs and soaring rents.

Creating Sustainable Employment Solutions for Youth in Egypt

Head Start! forged relationships that will help many of the entrepreneurs who received support to continue their work. One aspect was FMF-E’s creation of exhibitions dedicated to Head Start! participants. The exhibitions provided grantees with a platform for networking and finding clients. Along with the exhibitions, the FMF-E project team created an umbrella brand, Hagat W Mehtagat (“Things and Things,” a common Arabic phrase meaning a multitude of goods), based on the success of a first brand for handicrafts. Both brands have helped Head Start! clients with promotion and to generate business linkages.

Another linkage created that will very likely help the project clients sustain their enterprises is the FMF-E loan relationship itself. FMF-E expects that many of those project participants who took out business loans will advance to the level of small and medium enterprise (SME), with FMF-E supporting that transition.

FMF-E plans to reintroduce the business startup loan product again in the future once the political and economic situation in the country has improved and become more supportive for youth and entrepreneurship.

Among the project’s training components, AKF,E provided economic empowerment workshops for over 1,000 women in Darb Al-Ahmar, to enable them to grow micro-businesses in their communities. The workshops provided technical assistance and helped each woman craft a business proposal and budget. The workshops were a huge success and were well received in the Darb Al-Ahmar community. Later 973 of the 1008 women who participated submitted proposals to AKF,E’s micro-grants competition. As a result, 552 Head Start! women received grants to help start their businesses – over five times more than originally planned. Furthermore, the Ministry of Social Affairs intends, through its Productive Families Program, to continue working with these women to provide further support for their micro-enterprises.

Completed in spring 2014, Head Start! for Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment was an initiative of the First Microfinance Foundation Egypt, the Aga Khan Foundation Egypt, the Community Development Corporation and the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A. and made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development.

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