Chief of US foreign assistance program sees results of small business loans
CAIRO: The chief of America s foreign assistance program got a firsthand look Saturday at the results of US-backed small business loans, visiting shops in Cairo s 600-year-old Khan El-Khalili market district whose owners obtained financing under the loan program.
The overall objective of United States foreign assistance around the world is to give people the skills and the capabilities so that, increasingly, they can take charge of their own lives and their own destinies, Randall L. Tobias said as he admired colorful bedsheets and gleaming, engraved platters – some of the products of men and women who have received US-supported loans.
At one stop, seamstress Gamalette Assam Aly displayed bed sheets and pillowcases, printed with parrots on flowered branches. She told Tobias how loans had enabled her to stay in business and support her family.
Sayed El-Said El-Sharaki, a third-generation metal craftsman, pounded silver and copper wire into the grooves of an elaborate, hand-drawn design as he explained how US-backed loans enabled him buy more materials and expand his business.
For more than 15 years, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been the largest supporter of microfinance in Egypt, helping small businessmen to obtain loans for which they would not otherwise qualify.
The agency currently manages outstanding loans valued at LE 650 million ($113 million) and serving about 600,000 small businessmen and women.
USAID is expanding its microfinance program in Egypt and plans to lend as much as one billion pounds ($175 million) in 2007.
The goal of the American people and of USAID is to help poor people in Egypt get skills and be able to build businesses, so they can progress and get going on their own, Tobias said.
