British Embassy in Cairo launches Egypt Prosperity Fund

Deadline: 11 June 2020

The British Embassy in Cairo is pleased to announce the opening of a call for bids for the Egypt Skills for Prosperity Programme. This programme is being delivered in eight countries, and is part of the Global Skills Programme under the UK Government’s Prosperity Fund.

The purpose of this programme is to promote equitable access to higher education in poor areas, targeting low-income youth and young women in underrepresented courses, mainly STEM, support quality of learning outputs through creating a skills ecosystem inside public universities to equip undergraduates and post-graduates with in-demand and employability skills, and support effective transition from higher education to employment.

The Egypt Skills for Prosperity Programme provides £8 million in funding over 3-years, until 2023. The programme focuses on three strands of work:

Equity – Promote equitable access to higher education particularly for low-income youth, young people with disabilities, and young women from poor communities who wish to pursue further studies at public universities in underrepresented subjects such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).
Quality – Improve the soft skills ecosystem within public universities by equipping undergraduates, and post-graduates with in-demand and employability skills.
Relevance – Work with the British and Egyptian industry to improve the pathways of transition from higher education to employment, particularly in STEM careers, for the target groups.

The proposed impact of Egypt Skills for Prosperity (S4P) is increased capacity for inclusive economic growth due to improved employability skills, employment opportunities, labour market access and productivity of priority target beneficiaries. This impact is linked to the overall objectives of the UK Government’s Prosperity fund to reduce poverty and promote inclusive economic growth.

Interested organisations are expected to achieve three main interlinked outcomes: support equitable supply and access to higher education, improved skills set for target beneficiaries, and improved pathways of transition from higher education to employment corresponding to the three identified strands of work.

The Egypt Skills for Prosperity Programme, with its three strands of work, will be delivered by a consortium of partners with relevant expertise. All organisations are welcome to bid or form part of a bidding consortium. In particular, they encourage non-profit organisations and multilateral agencies to consider leading or joining a consortium. All lead organisations will need to clearly specify partner organisations within their consortium in the bid.

Funding Information

S4P Egypt Programme has been allocated up to £8 million pounds sterling. Budgets sent by implementers should not exceed the set amount and to enclose an activity based budget (ABB) to show clear budget allocations across the three strands of work. Co-funding schemes can be enclosed showing funding/donor entity.

Duration: Programme is expected to run to March 2023 including end-line evaluation to complete programme delivery.

S4P Egypt Programme should:

Bring together a delivery consortium that encompasses organisations with the capacity to operate within the Egyptian context and with relevant expertise in higher education provision, skills development and gender equality and access. Engagement with government and private sector is an important part of the programme;
Incorporate a comprehensive methodology of Gender and Social Inclusion with clear work approaches, targets, social inclusion indicators, and monitoring indicators disaggregated by gender to measure progress throughout programme cycle;
Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of secondary benefits i.e. identifying and enabling opportunities for international businesses, including UK businesses, to provide services in education and skills sectors in Egypt. Hence, demonstrate an ability to engage with private sector;
Assess the impact of current/previous programmes with similar objectives to S4P Egypt Programme to fill in gaps and complement the work of other successful initiatives;
Support innovative initiatives to enable a wider access to HE, build sustainable capacities and skills development within universities based on UK and international best practices, and offer pre-and-post graduation training and career placement for priority target groups;
Integrate sustainable ‘Training the Trainers’ schemes to develop skills of teaching staff within universities to pass on to undergraduates and to enhance their teaching and learning approaches based on UK and international best practice;
Develop skills training tailored to cultivate in-demand, mandatory employability skills in addition to in-demand soft skills (including leadership, communication, critical thinking, presentation and team work) based on needs assessment in selected universities;
Establish sustainable networks within public universities including women networks, mentoring networks, training and career placement networks;
Establish public-private partnerships (PPP) and support private sector initiatives including summer training, career placement schemes to promote on-the-job learning, job shadowing and leadership training. Additionally promote collaborations between government and industries to develop curricula that integrate modern needs of the economy and employability skills;
Establish a sustainable skills and training platform, network or forum bringing together key stakeholders from government, academia, university alumni, and private sector to discuss policy issues, training schemes and provide accurate data that support effective implementation of planned activities on ground;
Create a robust link between industries and universities to help bridge the gap between supply (unskilled university graduates) and demand (in-demand skills, employers needs and labour market needs), and supporting curricula development by providing thorough information about in-demand skills and modern economy needs.
Report on a Quarterly basis (technical and financial) on programme progress and attend regular monthly progress meetings with the incountry programme lead.
Incorporate a methodology of Monitoring, Reporting, Evaluation, and Learning (MREL) with clear initial indicators and mechanisms.