The Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Shaarawy has received the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Local Development, in Dokki, in the presence of the Deputy ICT Minister for Infrastructure Raafat Hindy.

This comes in light of the directives of the President of the Republic to the government to synergize and coordinate the efforts of different ministries and relevant government agencies to implement the national project of developing the villages in the Egyptian countryside, as part of Haya Karima (Decent Life) presidential initiative.

The two sides discussed the joint cooperation between the two Ministries, as part of the current initiatives for creating job opportunities for young people, namely  Your Work in Your Village, Freelancing and Remote Work Initiative, and Future Work is Digital (FWD). They discussed implementing such initiatives as part of the national project of developing the villages in the Egyptian countryside, within Haya Karima presidential initiative. The aim is to qualify young people in villages for the freelancing and remote work market, inside and outside Egypt, and provide them with job opportunities in IT companies to help them have a monthly income and a decent life.

Shaarawy commended the cooperation and support that the ICT Minister provides to the Ministry of Local Development and the governorates, with regard to automating and digitizing local services, and upskilling the employees responsible for delivering such services to citizens. This allows a fast and smooth access to services, and helps improve service quality, and monitor and enhance the performance of technological centers in a way that improves people’s satisfaction.

The Ministry of Local Development is carrying out Your Work in Your Village initiative in a number of governorates. The Ministry will also cooperate and coordinate with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in FWD to serve people in the target villages of Haya Karima initiative. This also comes in light of the presidential directives to focus on building the capacity of people in villages, as well as carrying out service, vital and development projects, and improving people’s welfare.

Shaarawy stressed the political leadership’s interest in youth of various groups and in listening to new and innovative initiatives and ideas to solve the problems and challenges facing the country, an effort that the Ministry of Local Development has been making recently, along with collaborating in youth initiatives in a number of governorates.

The Ministry of Local Development, in addition, contributes to the economic growth and to creating job opportunities for young people in the target villages through supporting Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) through the Local Development Fund (LDF) and Mashro3ak (Your Project) program. Part of that funding can be provided to support ICT-related projects, thus helping provide direct and indirect job opportunities.

For his part, the ICT Minister pointed out MCIT effort in Haya Karima initiative through carrying out vital and important projects to develop the telecommunication networks in the target villages, including replacing and renewing telecommunication lines with more efficient ones, developing mobile phone networks, and developing and transforming telephone exchanges and post offices into centers for providing a wide range of services of importance to citizens.

MCIT is also working on automating the government procedural services complexes that will be established in every local district, as well as equipping the developed technological center. In addition, MCIT is coordinating with the Ministry of Local Development and the Ministry of Planning to link the technological centers in the governorates with those in the cities.

Talaat said that MCIT can cooperate with the Ministry of Local Development in carrying out Freelancing and Remote Work Initiative, as well as FWD, which was launched a year ago, targeting training 100,000 young people in in-demand specializations in the freelancing market. FWD includes three levels of applied technology training in e-marketing, web development software, data science and data analysis, as well as professional training in digital freelancing. So far, 40,000 young people from 27 governorates and over 50 national and private universities, graduated from FWD.

Moreover, Talaat stated that FWD helped a large number of young people improve their career path, find job opportunities on global and local freelancing platforms, and achieve a monthly income of up to $2,000 USD. He added that there are many success stories for FWD graduates, including students and university graduates of different scientific disciplines and social levels, who were able to benefit from the initiative in acquiring applied skills in technology and freelancing, which qualified them to compete for international and local digital job opportunities.

At the end of the meeting, the two sides agreed on continuing coordination between the two Ministries to draft the pillars of a plan for joint cooperation, as part of a comprehensive protocol for cooperation in different areas of interest to citizens, within Haya Karima initiative.

The two Ministries, in addition, will cooperate in training and qualification through the training centers of the Ministry of Local Development in different governorates, and Saqqara Training Center. This is in addition to building the capacity of employees in local administration and service providers in governorates, in a way that helps improve the quality of services provided to citizens to improve their satisfaction and build trust between the government and the citizens.

From the Ministry of Local Development, the meeting was attended by the Assistant Minister Mohamed El Sayed, the Assistant Minister for Information Infrastructure and Training Salah Shehata, and the Assistant Minister for Institutional Development Khaled Kassem. From MCIT, the meeting was attended by the CEO of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) Amr Mahfouz, and the Chairwoman of the Information Technology Institute (ITI) Heba Saleh.