Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Rania El-Mashat, participated in the Horasis Extraordinary Annual meeting in the plenary “Nurturing Inclusive Leadership” on how to continue to deploy international leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic and implement novel business models for deep social cohesion.
The global meeting gathered around 1,000 of the most senior members of the Horasis Visions Community, including several heads of governments and key ministers, to discuss the economic, political, and social disruptions caused by COVID-19, including Princess Märtha Louise of Norway,António Vitorino, Director General of International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Nik Gowing, Founder of Thinking the Unthinkable, according to a statement on Tuesday.
To push for an international response to the COVID-19 emergency, El-Mashat declared the years of 2020-2021 as the years of multilateralism, noting that Egypt’s Ministry of International Cooperation focused on strengthening economic diplomacy through three principles: regularly organising multi-stakeholder platforms to ensure that all projects between development partners are streamlined and effectively coordinated; adopting a consistent Global Partnerships Narrative people & projects & purpose (P&P&P); and mapping ODA financing to SDGs for all projects with multilateral and bilateral development partners.
On promoting inclusion and diversity, the minister referred to the “silver lining” in the pandemic - that it accelerated reforms. One of the reforms in Egypt that have been accelerated is “Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator” to include more women for the country’s productivity, job creation, and economic empowerment.
There were also many policies taken to support women during the pandemic and facilitate a remote working environment to sustain jobs, such as allowing working mothers with children under the age of 12 and mothers with children with disabilities to have the right of paid leave following the suspension of schools and universities.
El-Mashat added that nurturing inclusive leadership will require the leaders of tomorrow to lead with a creative imagination to push forward through crisis, as it can provide new momentum for economic growth and job creation, including women and youth, and provide solutions to biggest global challenges such as poverty eradication.
Horasis is a global visions community that provides a unique platform for companies from emerging and developed markets to globalise their organisations.
