Value of U.S-Egypt agreement on supporting higher education rises to $237.2M

CAIRO – 1 September 2022: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi issued Thursday decree no. 202/2022, approving an amendment to a U.S.- Egyptian agreement on supporting the country's higher education.

The amendment pertains to increasing the value of the aid by $31 million from $256,200,000 to $287,200,000. The agreement was signed on September 29, 2021 in Cairo.   

USAID Egypt announced last week that the U.S. government is supporting Egypt's response to COVID-19 with $9 million in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).

The establishment noted that the United States had provided Egypt with a total of $64 million since the outbreak of the pandemic, as well as a total of 28 million doses of Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson vaccines.

The US Agency for International Development’s historical cooperation (USAID) portfolio in Egypt has exceeded $30 billion since 1978, while the portfolio of projects signed since 2014 has reached about $1 billion, according to the Ministry of International Cooperation earlier in August.

The Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al-Mashat, referred to the persistent cooperation between the Ministry and the US Embassy in Cairo over the last two years, and that the past years of cooperation created a strong foundation to expand more areas of cooperation for the period from 2021-2025.

According to the statement, in 2020, the Ministry of International Cooperation and the USAID/Egypt signed 7 grant agreements worth $125 million to develop the country's priority sectors, the results of which will be reflected in the improvement of the people’s livelihoods.

This came during Al-Mashat’s meeting with the US ambassador in Cairo, Jonathan Cohen, who is set to officially end his mission in Egypt as a representative of the United States of America by the end of this month.

During the meeting, Cohen expressed his gratitude for the role of the Ministry of International Cooperation in promoting effective and inclusive multilateral engagement over the past period and strengthening the strategic partnership between the United States of America and the Arab Republic of Egypt.