Women generate 30,000 financial transactions worth EGP1m through the Heya Fawry initiative reaching 150 Egyptian women across Egypt, according to the Arab Women`s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) Egypt Country Director, Yomna Mustafa.
The Heya Fawry initiative is the very first female e-payment agent network in Egypt that aims to empower low income women who either own retail shop, are home workers, or unemployed to become its agents, and encourage other female consumers in their local communities to access e-payments services and consumer goods.
The initiative is a joint effort between the private sector in which Fawry partners with Unliver, transnational consumer goods company, and insurance firm AXA, and several Egyptian NGOS including Baheya, Mersal, Resala, Plan International, and the AWEF programme.
On Tuesday, the initiative announced the official launching of the second phase of the e-payment network at a press conference at the Brutish Embassy.
As part of the six-month pilot phase, Mustafa explained during the conference that 150 women were successfully trained and received point of sales machines to act as Haya Fawry agents.
She declared that in the next few months, Heya Fawry partners will jointly scale up the initiative to attract more and more agents, targeting to 600 additional women during the next few months.
Mustafa asserted that the initiative is considered a great opportunity to increase women’s employment opportunities in Egypt, which will positively impact financial inclusion.
She revealed that the success of the initiative is due to the partnership with the private sector and a number of charities and associations.
The British ambassador to Egypt, Geoffrey Adams stated the embassy praised the
Egyptian government’s efforts in providing and supporting women in financial inclusion.
The ambassador added that the percentage of female employment is increasing annually, helping women become more independent.
He pointed out that there are great attempts by the Egyptian government to encourage women to be independent, adding that the initiative is an immediate and good example that proves Egyptian women can work well.