Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria, gave a lecture, titled “Youth and the Private Sector: Do Business Leaders Have a Responsibility to Provide a Better Future for Youth?” was hosted by the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on March 24.
“The Arab world must create 100 million job opportunities within 20 years to absorb the number of youth that is coming in,” said Serageldin, who chose to change the title of the lecture to, “Young Entrepreneurs Will Build Modern Egypt,” in order to make a statement that is optimistic in contrast to the above statistic.
Serageldin began by addressing the third global evolution, the knowledge revolution, which he said is “moving us away from the muscle to the brain,” with all the new technology that is developing and “expanding our brain’s reach beyond anything our parents could’ve anticipated.”
He continued by giving an example of how Arab youth remain on the receiving end of that new technology. Companies have “Islamicized,” the mobile phone by having Quran verses on it or the prayer call as a ring tone, instead, he added, we should truly “Islamicize” the mobile phone by having the Muslim community be its producers rather than its consumers.
“It is a waste of talent, being unable to accommodate the young people and have them fulfill their dreams,” said Serageldin, adding that he believes the answer to youth unemployment is the encouragement of entrepreneurship and having faith in the creativity of young people.
Aside from being the director of the Library of Alexandria, Serageldin is also a member and chair of advisory committees for several academic, scientific and international institutions such as Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Institut d’Egypte and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP). He was also the vice president for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development at the World Bank, and has published over 50 books and monographs.
Serageldin illustrated some of the challenges that prevent Egyptian youth from reaching their potential. He stressed, however, that money is the least of these problems since channeling that money in the right direction is what truly matters.
One of the main challenges impeding Egyptian youth, according to Serageldin, is education. He said that science and math need to be emphasized, along with upgrading skill education. But most importantly, he said, schools and institutions should teach people how to learn, explaining that there are three types of education; self learning, guided learning and instruction.
“The overwhelming majority of learning in Egypt is instruction,” he said, “we must encourage the students to ask ‘what if’ and to challenge themselves.”
Other challenges include education related policies, the interface between the public and the private sector and the decline in the quality of institutions in Egypt.
“We can make a difference by focusing on youth, thereby we’ll be working together to put Egypt on top of the world,” said Serageldin.
Daily News Egypt
In a nation where entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as key to economic advancement, starting your own business is about as acceptable and mainstream as it gets — unless you are part of the 48% of society who happen to be female.
In that case, the announcement that you intend to go it alone and become an entrepreneur will often be met with raised eyebrows or condescending encouragement.
The 2007 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) found that women make up only 22% of non-agricultural paid labor in the country. When women do work, their salaries are sub-par: Men earn four times as much annually — $6,817 per year as opposed to the recorded female average of $1,588. Women still struggle to advance within their fields, according to the report’s findings.
There aren’t many high-level government role models, either. The WEF reported that women’s representation in Parliament is nearly non-existent, and only 6% of senior officials are female.
Despite ranking 120 out of 128 countries surveyed, there is hope; the booming economy and government’s easing of regulations for starting businesses means females with an entrepreneurial spirit are taking action. Numerous studies have found that reducing inequality enhances economic growth, meaning the more that women are educated, empowered and employed, the better off Egypt will be.
For three young female entrepreneurs, the challenges and prejudices they faced in opening their own businesses were outweighed by the rewards: financial independence, personal satisfaction and a demonstration of the power and potential of passionate young women in a changing society.
The Right Chemistry Sara Talaat has managed to build a successful pharmacy in the busy Heliopolis district of Ard El-Golf, and credits her success to a combination of passion and commitment.
“I love this field, and I’ve always loved chemistry,” she says. “I believe that to establish a successful pharmacy business, you need to have a strong base of knowledge and the desire to succeed.”
Talaat’s family encouraged her entrepreneurial spirit, and her father was happy to match it with financial help. During her studies at university, Talaat was able to focus on developing her skills, knowing she would have the financial support she needed to start her own business.
“During college, I worked in pharmaceutical companies on vacation periods, but I eventually decided to pursue a career in pharmacies,” she explains. “After my graduation, I worked in the Ali and Ali pharmacy for four years, until I became the sales manager. Additionally, I worked in the Child Care Hospital of Abbasiya, which put me in contact with a very different social class — that is really what diversified my experience.”
Talaat found the right location for her business in an old, rundown pharmacy, which she managed to turn into a successful venture — in part by making it a pleasant shopping experience for her customers.
She studied the area around the pharmacy and built relations with local physicians, the two medical centers, as well as her neighbors. Pushing for a strong start, Talaat held a big opening ceremony and invited all of these people, offering a 20% discount on all products that day.
“Medicine. The priority is for the medicine, and this means all kinds — local as well as imported medicine and [medicine given with] chemotherapy treatments. I wanted all types of cosmetics to be available, but I also wanted customers to enjoy shopping.”
She develops that rapport through quality service, solid relationships and healthy dose of natural sociability.
Plenty of obstacles stood in Talaat’s way, chief among them the fact that she was a 25-year-old woman. “It was not easy, as a young female, to make pharmaceutical companies trust me, in addition to some routine problems with the municipality.”
Apart from the business challenges, there is also the social pressure, particularly with family and cultural expectations of marriage. Can a woman successful in business be lucky in love, or will men find it hard to accept a wife who is as good or a better breadwinner than himself? Sidestepping the question, Talaat defers to fate when it comes to issues like marriage, believing that the perfect man will love her regardless of success and money.
For the future, Talaat wants to expand her business into a big chain of pharmacies and establish her own pharmaceutical company — all under her management.
Growing at a Good ClipThe coiffeur known simply as Naema believes that ‘unemployment’ is not at issue: “Who wants to work will do so; youth claim that they do not find work, but actually they do not want to find work.”
At the age of 22, after three years working in other people’s beauty salons, Naema opened her own coiffeur with less than LE 10,000 — all from her own savings.
“At first, when I was 19, I worked for others just to gain experience. I used to sweep the floor, make coffee, and do the supplementary work, but opening my coiffeur under my management was the major objective.”
Naema’s family didn’t welcome the idea of using her entire savings to open a business; they thought she should avoid the risk and enjoy the comfort of a steady job. “They did not want me to fail,” she recalls. “It’s not only about the money, but failure.”
For marketing, Naema did nothing. As a service provider, she relied instead on word of mouth; if she was good, people would refer her to their friends and those friends would refer her to others and her salon would blossom into a known and reputable business.
Naema is married to Ayman, also a hairdresser; they have two children, Mustafa and Yusuf. The couple has a nanny who minds the children at the shop, so they can be near Naema.
“This is hard, it’s really hard. When I opened the coiffeur I was keen to make it a perfect place. Similarly, when I got married I took care of my house to make it also perfect. I believed that if work came at the expense of home or vice versa, I [wouldn’t] be able to proceed in both. This is the problem for every woman.”
One thing that she doesn’t find hard is working in the same profession as her husband. “I’ve never felt that someone competes [with] me in my work, therefore I don’t feel that Ayman is my competitor. We are at the same level of success, and I am actually used to not comparing myself with anyone else; I just focus on what I’m doing.”
When you taste success, you want more, and Naema is anticipating expansion for her business in the future. She is looking forward to transforming the coiffeur into a beauty center, adding more services like a spa, comprehensive skin care services and a Moroccan bath.
Naema believes she succeeded at such a young age because of her passion for her business. “With our job, if you love it, it will love you and give you awesome results,” she explains. “People trust me because I have confidence in myself, and that’s what builds my good reputation.”
Shaking ‘n Shaping a Market NicheNoha Hassan had been working as a business developer for one of the biggest telecom companies in Egypt, but she was never able to leave behind her interest in aerobics and fitness. Finally, she decided to open her own studio in December 2006. The first of its kind, the Shake ’n Shape studio offers fitness and dancing exclusively for women.
“I’ve always loved sports. I stayed in fitness, playing just as a hobby until I opened this place.”
Hassan used to be a regular customer at many of Egypt’s gyms until mixed gyms didn’t suit her needs anymore.
“When I put the veil on seven years ago, it was very uncomfortable to exercise in a mixed place. I felt that it’s my right to enjoy my hobby, but I did not find a nice place with a quality service — and I mean by ‘quality service’ to have the best trainers, not a luxurious place or real estate [large, expensive] equipment.”
The main challenge Hassan encountered when she entered the business was headhunting the best trainers, an obstacle she still faces today, “because we don’t have professional universities or institutes that teach fitness in Egypt, good trainers are not easily found.”
“First of all, I tried to minimize the risk as much as I could by calculating everything. I come from a business background, so I used all my marketing experience to study my business. I believed that you live life once, and it is worth it to give this a try; even if I fail I will never regret that I’ve tried it. I did not want to live and die and feel that I could have made something and it could have grown big, but my fear prevented me.”
Hassan believes that the culture actually aids female entrepreneurs: Women will never be asked to save their money to pay for marriage—a duty traditionally allocated to men. This, she reasons, should be an encouraging factor when women think about investing.
That said, Hassan’s family had mixed reactions to her decision: While her mother was supportive and encouraging, her brother was always sarcastic and belittling to her.
Hassan developed the project while still working in telecom. Looking back, she says that she has no idea how she managed to do both. “It was extremely hard, especially in that my job was very demanding. I used to finish at six, head to the studio and return home at 11, so it was crazy. I did not have any personal or social life. I was not enjoying my success or having fun because I was too tired to do so.
“Even when I attended [the studio’s aerobics] classes — which are a lot of fun, you want to give the people energy, and enjoy and share it with them — I was out of energy. My mind was always busy with payments, salaries and installments.”
Recently, Hassan decided to take another risk and leave her old job, although her business is in a position where it still requires investment in order to grow.
“I realized that I can not manage a place without knowing how it is going professionally, so I decided to study fitness.”
Noha hopes to move to a bigger location, and perhaps add a sauna and jacuzzi so members will stay longer to pamper themselves after their workouts.
But these entrepreneurs have no easy battle ahead of them; while the World Bank’s Doing Business report for 2008 named Egypt as its top reformer for the year (see “We’re Number One,” in the November 2007 issue), benefits for women, who work predominately in the informal sector, remain limited. As the red tape surrounding opening a business is cut, it has become easier to obtain licenses and employ workers, meaning many more women may soon find themselves in a position to join Hassan, Naema and Talaat as business owners.
Business Today Egypt
The Canadian Ambassador to Egypt Philip MacKinnon in an interview for Business Today Egypt, spoke about the current situation in Egypt, the Canadian foreign policy and most importantly the growth sectors and the obstacles to growth and how to overcome them.
Here's a part of the interview, for the full article
http://www.businesstodayegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7921
You mentioned earlier that South Korea had a “tremendous impact” on you. How so?In the 1950s, every left-wing economist said it was the poorest country in the world and would remain the poorest country in the world. Then you see what’s happened.
Like every idealistic foreign service officer, I wanted to find the secret of why South Korea was doing so well when I got there. I thought there were two reasons, one of which is shared by Egypt, and that’s the simple fact that people are willing to make virtually any sacrifice to get their children educated. The other was hope and confidence in the future. They believed that their own lives could improve, and that the lives of their children would be qualitatively and quantitatively — even unrecognizably —better.
That kind of widespread hope and confidence doesn’t exist here, not yet. I hope it will, but it’s not an easy thing to generate.
The benefits of the Nazif government’s economic reforms haven’t “trickled down” to the man on the street yet, have they? Nor has the hope.But hopefully they will. As you know far better than I do, the economic indicators today are quite positive. You’ve got a better group of economic ministers than you’ve had at any time in the last 50 years. I think Dr. Nazif, Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Maghrabi, Mohieldin, Mansour, Boutros-Ghali and people like that are great people who are trying to get something done.
What they need to complement their vision and their achievements is somebody who is a real politician. Somebody who can connect with the people, who can sell the people on these very necessary reforms.
What are the growth sectors going forward?Education, for certain — perhaps we can come back to that in a moment. I would hope agriculture would be another one. Egyptian growers are very aware that far from the public perception, agriculture is not a low-tech venture. You don’t just toss down some wheat, thresh the top off and send it somewhere — the degree of work done on seeds, yields, etc, is extremely advanced. I would like to get canola, which is a crop that can be grown in winter and in places like Toshka, more into Egypt. And it’s an edible oil — Egypt imports millions in edible oils — and its health benefits are on par with olive oil.
Going forward, Egypt will be paying more and more attention to high-tech agriculture. I always make a point of telling Canadian businesses, “What you have to understand about Egypt is that there are 78 million people, and the cultivatable area and the liveable area is the size of Denmark.” Seventy-eight million people. Forget about self-sufficiency and focus on strategic priorities. If this is done, then expansion of agriculture to include more and more advanced methods will be important.
And it’s not just Canada selling agricultural technology to Egypt. There are so many things that we source from Mexico, for example, that we could be sourcing from here, particularly as we work through customs, transportation and sanitation issues.
One of the biggest obstacles to growth, though, will be the mismatch between labor supply and the market’s demands, particularly as more and more communications and IT companies come in. There’s a large, educated workforce here, but skills need to be upgraded. That’s why you hear about business people having problems getting the employees they need in a country with 10% unemployment.
Is the workforce educated or educable? Both. They’ve gone through the education system and as graduates they’re ready to take on additional training. It’s not a problem with the graduate, but with a system that puts 70,000 people into a single faculty of business administration at Cairo University. The biggest university in Canada is the University of Toronto with 70,000 students!
Is Canadian immigration policy changing?
No. If you look at opinion polls in Western countries since 9/11, there is probably only one country where a huge majority of the population agrees with the proposition that immigrants make a positive contribution to the society —and that is Canada. A large majority.
We’ve had two federal elections in Canada in the last four years, and immigration policy has not been an issue in either of them —not for a moment. The only time it has come up has been people asking how we can do more to make it possible for immigrants to have their foreign academic and professional credentials recognized in Canada.
How many Egyptian-Canadians — or Canadian-Egyptians — are there today?It’s hard to count, but there are probably 250,000 Egyptian-Canadians. That’s a large diaspora in a nation of just 33 million people. And Egyptians, like the 250,000 or so Iranian-Canadians, do extremely well in Canada.
