EWC recommends investing in expats expertise for development

CAIRO – 4 July 2017: The first ever conference to focus on expat women’s issues and ways to strengthen the link between them and their homeland, the ‘Egyptian Women Can conference’, concluded on Monday.

Participants in the conference called for organizing similar conferences in other countries with focus on youth participation. The organization wants to introduce a national efforts to promote Egypt, and to give expat youth the opportunity to participate in sustainable development efforts.

Main conference recommendations included:
Establishing a mechanism to facilitate expat Egyptians support for national initiatives led by the ‘Long Live Egypt’ Fund; including support through telecommunications networks and mobile phones.
Partnership between Egyptian and American libraries, to prepare Cairo to be the world Book Capital in the coming years.
Developing a centralized state geographic information system using the technology of remote sensing in cooperation with national and international experts and specialists. Remote sensing helps exploration of natural resources and groundwater, prediction of natural disasters, detection of illegal exploration of antiquities, protection of agricultural land from infringements, and border control and combating illegal migration.
Preparing a database of Egyptian experts in various fields to ensure optimal employment of their expertise to achieve sustainable development in Egypt.
Supporting scientific research in universities to upgrade the national products and reduce the trade deficit.

The two-day conference included several discussion sessions on themes; women and decision making, health care, sustainable development through shift to production, women empowerment and immigration, economic challenges and solutions, and media, art and culture as community awareness raising tools.

Furthermore, the conference led to several agreements building on the expertise of the 31 women participants. The agreements included supporting the Ministry of Military Production’s manufacturing with advanced manufacturing technology, an agreement to invite a delegation of Egyptian women parliamentarians to visit the Australian Parliament, an agreement of cooperation with the Parliament and the national security committee in the security and counterterrorism fields, and an agreement to support the Ministry of Industry and Trade in sustainable development goals in the field of industry.

The ‘Egyptian Women Can’ conference was organized on July 2-3 by the Ministry of Immigration and Expatriate Affairs under the auspices of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and in cooperation with the National Council for Women (NCW). The two-day conference aimed to strengthen the role of female Egyptian expatriates in developing Egypt, and to achieve the sustainable development goals of Egypt’s Vision by 2030. It also shed light on the achievements of women in all fields. They encourage them to form role models for new generations of young men and women.

The conference came as part of the “Al Taa Marbouta is your strength” awareness campaign launched by the NCW during the month of Ramadan. It was created to support and empower Egyptian women and highlight the importance of women's participation in all economic, political and social sectors. A total of 31 expat female Egyptian experts specializing in scientific, intellectual and academic fields participated in the conference.

The conference also came in conjunction with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s announcement that 2017 is the ‘year of Egyptian women’ and the national initiative to enable Egyptian women.