The report outlines the economic transformation process in Egypt with a focus on the critical topic of job creation, and how the emergency measures undertaken by authorities in response to the COVID-19 crisis are helping Egypt weather the shock. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the report states that the Egyptian economy was characterized by a largely stable macroeconomic environment, owing to bold fiscal, monetary, and energy sector reforms that helped it build buffers in its fiscal and external accounts. Key reforms that helped push forward the economic transformation include energy sector reforms, easing of monetary policy and fiscal consolidation measures that focused on the streamlining of energy subsidies, containment of the wage bill, and the shift from a sales tax to a modern Value-Added Tax; reflecting positively on Egypt’s business environment. The report highlighted that the primary budget balance switched into a surplus, and that the overall budget deficit- and government debt-to-GDP ratios declined to 8.1 percent and 90.2 percent in FY2018/19, compared to 10.9 percent and 108.0 percent respectively only two years earlier. Going forward, the report proposes approaches to unlock Egypt’s productivity and job creation potential, particularly as the private sector gradually assumed a larger share over the past fifteen years through: sustaining macroeconomic stability and overall policy predictability, create an enabling environment to attract opportunities for domestic and foreign investments in order to enhance within-sector productivity growth and to support the movement of workers into higher value activities and sectors, and upgrading human capital and firm capabilities through investing in education, vocational and on-the-job training, as well as adopting quality standards in production and service delivery. Egypt’s Story of Resilience Singled out on the Global Stage Minister of International Cooperation, H.E. Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, affirmed that the report reflects Egypt’s story of resilience that has been singled out on the global stage through several international reports, such as the Global Economic Prospects issued earlier by the World Bank, as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction Report, which highlighted that Egypt is the only economy across the region likely to escape recession in the 2020 calendar year, and the only country with positive rates of 2%in 2020 and expectations in 2021 of 5%. In its efforts to promote effective development cooperation and ensure the optimal contribution of development cooperation projects to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Ministry of International Cooperation conducted a comprehensive mapping exercise of all current effective projects to identify their alignment with relevant SDGs. Egypt and World Bank Partnership for Supporting A Resilient Economy Al-Mashat referred to the longstanding cooperation with the World Bank Group to support a resilient economy. The strategic partnership helps push forward the SDG agenda in line with Egypt’s vision 2030 through a diversified country engagement program with People at the Core, Projects in Action, and Purpose as the Driver. During 2020, Egypt signed with the World Bank Group a total of four agreements in sectors of health, social solidarity and environment worth $1.15 billion. Al-Mashat said that the Ministry has been committed to chart the course for ODA SDG financing as as the world enters into a “decade of action and delivery,” redesigning development finance to be dedicated towards sustainable development and collectively achieve the National 2030 Agenda. H.E. Dr. Tareq Shawki reviewed Egypt’s journey in developing the education system, which aims to move away from the superficial approach to understanding and indoctrination to the development of important skills, problem solving and creativity. Since its launch in 2017, the new education system now reaches over 8 million Egyptian students, and more than 630,000 teachers have been trained and qualified for the new education system. Over the past two years, over 4.10 million exams were done digitally. For her part, Marina Wes, World Bank Country Director for Egypt, stated that, “despite the challenges presented by Covid-19, Egypt managed to maintain a solid macroeconomic performance in 2020 on the back of bold fiscal, monetary and energy sector reforms in previous years.” “The current COVID-19 crisis can be an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of reforms to address long-standing constraints on private sector activity and job-creation with a focus on building human capital, enabling private sector investment, job creation and social inclusion,” she added. The total current portfolio of bilateral cooperation between Egypt and the World Bank totals about $5.38 billion in housing, sanitation, social solidarity, transportation, health, education, local development, petroleum, small enterprises and the environment.