As North Africa looks for new engines of job creation and private-sector-led growth, Egypt's Startup Charter offers timely lessons on how policy coordination, innovative financing and ecosystem dialogue can turn entrepreneurship into a national development priority.

Mr. Tamer Taha served as Co-Chair of the Technical Secretariat for Egypt's Ministerial Group for Entrepreneurship, which led the collective efforts behind the "Egypt Startup Charter", a landmark policy initiative launched in February 2026. In this interview, he reflects on how Egypt's startup ecosystem has evolved; the role of the African Development Bank, and where he sees the strongest opportunities for regional collaboration in entrepreneurship, impact investing, and formalisation across North Africa.

Egypt's startup ecosystem has been described as undergoing a major transformation. What was missing before, and what did the Egypt Startup Charter set out to change?

Over the past few years, Egypt's startup ecosystem has evolved significantly, attracting increasing interest from entrepreneurs, investors, support organisations, international development partners, and government institutions. This growth was reflected in Egyptian startups raising approximately $614 million in equity and debt financing in 2025.

As the ecosystem matured, it became clear that stronger coordination was needed across stakeholders, along with a shared national framework, common priorities, and a unified vision linking entrepreneurship to broader economic growth and job creation. Better alignment also meant that available resources could be deployed more efficiently.

Another priority area was to clarify the distinction between startups, SMEs, and traditional new ventures, which have different growth trajectories, financing needs, and policy requirements. Without this distinction, it was more difficult to design targeted incentives and support mechanisms. The Egypt Startup Charter responded by positioning startups as an integral part of Egypt's economic development agenda, and by presenting entrepreneurship as a driver of innovation, productivity, competitiveness, and long-term transformation in an increasingly knowledge- and technology-driven economy.

One of its key contributions was the introduction of a more coordinated ecosystem approach involving founders, investors, corporates, and government entities. The Charter also introduced a Startup ID certification system as a foundation for more targeted support and data-driven policymaking.

Equally important was the process itself. More than 250 ecosystem representatives, and over 15 government entities were involved (for) over a year and a half. The Charter was ultimately a nationally driven and home-grown effort financed by the Egyptian government in partnership with ecosystem stakeholders.

What were the Charter's most significant outcomes -- for investors, for financing, and for the ecosystem -- and where did the African Development Bank fit in that process?

In addition to establishing a common definition and certification framework for startups, one of the Charter's most important contributions was providing greater policy clarity and predictability for ecosystem stakeholders. Through more than 80 policy actions spanning startup establishment, access to government services, talent development, financing, and market access, the Charter sent a strong signal that entrepreneurship and startups had become a national economic priority, backed by continuous dialogue with the ecosystem and coordinated engagement across government. Another important achievement was a more structured approach to startup financing. The Charter helped identify financing gaps across the startup lifecycle and advanced policy discussions on innovative instruments including the proposed Catalytic Finance Initiative. This initiative was designed to crowd in private capital and strengthen financing pathways through measures such as corporate venture capital funds, crowdfunding, matching funds for angel investors and other innovative financing mechanisms.

The African Development Bank Group played an important supporting role through the Enhancement of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Egypt (EEE) project. This included support to a 2024 Policy Hackathon which helped align ecosystem stakeholders and informed later Charter discussions. The Charter also built on ecosystem studies and reports including work previously commissioned by the Bank.

Progress has been made, but structural challenges remain -- particularly around employment, financing gaps, and informality. How do you think about informality specifically: is it primarily a regulatory problem or something more fundamental?

I do not see informality simply as a regulatory issue. Like Morocco and Tunisia, Egypt operates within a dual economy where a large share of employment remains concentrated in the informal sector, particularly at the lower end of value chains.

For this reason, formalisation should be viewed as part of a broader economic strategy linked to productivity, job quality, and long-term business sustainability. The priority should be to create tangible incentives that encourage businesses to formalise rather than relying only on regulation or enforcement.

One practical example is the support mechanisms linked to the Startup ID system, including subsidised employee training programs, international market access opportunities, business development services, and capacity-building support. These measures are designed to accelerate startup growth and scaling. More broadly, high-growth startups create formal jobs. As those jobs expand, they can attract workers away from informal employment into the formal economy. In that sense, supporting startup growth is not only an entrepreneurship objective; it is also part of a broader strategy to improve productivity, job quality, and labor market formalisation.

Where do you see EInA (Entrepreneurship, Innovations and Advice )'s work on impact investing and formalisation connecting most directly to Egypt's priorities -- and what is the opportunity for North Africa as a region?

I see strong alignment between Egypt's current entrepreneurship priorities and EInA's work in this space. Impact investing was integrated into the Charter discussions from an early stage, with growing emphasis on supporting impact-driven startups that can generate quality jobs, advance women's economic participation, and address wider social and environmental challenges.

What matters most to me is that impact investing, job creation, innovation, and formalisation should not be viewed as separate policy agendas, whether nationally or regionally. They are mutually reinforcing drivers of productivity, competitiveness, and inclusive growth. Across North Africa, countries face many of the same challenges around productivity, access to finance, business growth, and the transition from informal to formal economic activity. EInA's work on knowledge exchange and policy frameworks around MSME formalisation directly supports what Egypt and its neighbours are trying to achieve through ecosystem reform.

The 2024 Regional Workshop in Cairo illustrated this well. The discussions between Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia on entrepreneurship, financing and formalisation were substantive and grounded in real experience. For me, that is EInA's core contribution: helping countries across the region think collectively about how entrepreneurship, impact investing and formalisation can be combined into coherent strategies for inclusive and sustainable job creation while creating opportunities for cross-border partnerships, shared learning, and collaboration on common policy and development challenges.