The Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Rania Al-Mashat announced the signature of two grant agreements worth CAD 14 million with the Canadian Ambassador to Egypt, Mr. Jess Dutton for the health, socio-economic support and empowerment of women, under the bilateral development as-sistance program. The first is the Canada funded and UNFPA-implemented project “Addressing Gaps in Reproductive Health and Rights in Egypt” which aims to support women by increasing awareness on family plan-ning services and providing access to health services. This project is in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Population as well as the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The second project, imple-mented by UN Women and UNIDO focuses on women’s economic empowerment with key partners such as the National Council of Women and the Ministry of Trade & Industry. The project is expected to serve up to 36.3k beneficiaries, whether directly or indirectly. “Empowering women can transform lives and society. Women’s empowerment can strengthen an economy in several ways—greater gender equity can support growth, social inclusion, and econom-ic resilience. Our bilateral development assistance program with the Government of Canada accel-erates Gender Equality and inclusive sustainable growth” said Minister Al Mashat. “We hope Canada’s bilateral development assistance program, with its partners, will support Egypt’s health and socio-economic response to the pandemic and beyond. The agreements serve Egypt’s inclusive sustainable growth by enhancing health services, as well as creating new job opportunities for women and enabling a healthy and resilient environment that promotes women entrepreneur-ship in growth sectors such as those of agriculture and energy” said Ambassador Dutton. The Minister added “This is in line with the Ministry of International Cooperation’s Global Partner-ships Narrative that focus on three main pillars, People at the Core, Projects in Action and Purpose as the Driver”. Minister Al Mashat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health and Population, Canadian Ambassador, UNDP and WHO have also launched virtually on Monday the “Support to Egypt for COVID 19 screening and testing capacity” project from the Government of Canada’s crisis pool funds to support the GoE’s efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic.