2nd January 2019

MENA

Meet Egypt’s New Manifesto Designed to Spur Foreign and Local Investments

A call for governments, organizations, academics and startups to collaborate under one roof.

Once a highly centralized planned economy for most of the 20th century, the dictatorship of President Gamal Abdel Nasser transformed Egypt into one of the most notable petroleum exporters of the world. Now, with the global trade outline turning its eyes to renewable energy sources, the local leadership wants to stimulate a turning point like never before.

In order to boost a process of groundbreaking reforms and changes for a better environment that accelerates entrepreneurship in Egypt, the famous annual summit RiseUp has been leading a new initiative called “The Startup Manifesto”, a substantial documentation addressing the many hurdles and solutions for the young business community in the making.

Many crucial factors were discussed in the pages, but the most important we found talk about: Micro-finances, government regulations, technological integration, talent pool, investment opportunities and the economic landscape of the country. Another interesting fact is that companies, legal experts, government officials and hundreds of stakeholders were involved in the 12-month development stage of the plan.

“The Startup Manifesto is a document which aims to shape the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem by providing an overview of challenges and by suggesting actionable solutions for everybody to work on,” says the main statement at the official website.

The people behind this endeavor are Ayman Shehata, Sally Mansour, Ameer Sherif, Dalia Said, Nermine El Tahri, Alaa Hashem, Dr. Sherif Kamel and Louay El Shawarby just to name a few. On the other hand, dozens of partners joined the effort including Startup Bahrain, the Egyptian Stock Exchange, Wuzzuf, Uber, IBM, Pepsico, Facebook and Vodafone.

One great triumph of the event is that Minister of Social Solidarity Dr. Ghada Wali signed a protocol with RiseUp intended for “new, fresh, creative ideas to achieve the sustainable development goals for the Egypt 2030 vision”.

Since the turn of the new millenium, Egypt has witnessed an increasing number of structural, fiscal and monetary reforms, conducted by an arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the start of the 1990s, in which a series of privatizations and business legislations were put in place with the intention to diversify the national economy towards innovation and open competitiveness.

Most results are good, Egypt’s GDP is growing an average 7 percent annually but wealth inequality has become a larger problem. Projects like the Startup Manifesto are a natural response from local entrepreneurs that see an optimistic future for the coming decades, and they want the international investment community to pay attention.