Unleashing the Private Sector’s Potential to Contribute to Community Development

GFD promotes the concept of gender equality as a part of the CSR concept. The foundation is working to provide a framework to support and challenge businesses to mobilize their technical and financial resources, improve their CSR performance and achieve positive impact and sustainable results in the communities where they operate. In addition, GFD ensures that companies are aware of the impact and benefits of promoting Gender Equality on business growth and ensure that they take the necessary measures that foster an empowering working environment for their female employees.

The private sector in Egypt plays a leading role in the Egyptian economy as it employs around 70% of the Egyptian labor force. Following the structural economic reforms that Egypt has embarked on in the past eight years, the private sector has been seen as not only as a major potential contributor to the Egyptian economy, but also a fundamental agent of change in the Egyptian society that can positively contribute to community development. In GFD, we have seen that the private sector is seldom to embark on community initiatives unless they are cost-effective. Hence, the foundation works on encouraging the private sector to mobilize their financial and technical capacities to contribute to community development using innovative cost-efficient techniques such as click funds for fundraising and social media campaigns that can both promote their products and at the same time, deliver educational messages on health and family wellbeing. The Foundation is employing the use of cost-effective methodologies and tools to further motivate the private sector to become main players in the scene of community development. By doing so, this will create a new gateway for future collaboration between GFD and private businesses. Additionally, GFD encourages the private sector to adopt employee engagement in the implementation of their CSR initiatives instead of hiring third parties to undertake the task, this provides a more cost-effective solution while also fostering team building and a sense of pride within the organizations.