Japan's Embassy, UNICEF to Expand Scope of Vaccination Against COVID-19 in Egypt

On Sunday, Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Rania A. Al-Mashat, and Acting Minister of Health, alongside Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, witnessed the inking of an agreement and a memorandum of understanding between Japan’s Embassy in Cairo and UNICEF to implement a project to expand the scope of vaccination against COVID-19 in Egypt to ensure safe storage and effective delivery of vaccines.

With $3.5 million in funding from Japan, the project aims to address gaps in the logistics performance and storage capacity of the country’s health system amid the scale-up of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Tackling the nexus between health, inequality, and strong institutions, the project aims to establish effective cold chain systems at 500 vaccination sites and vaccine security during storage and transportation, as well as train at least 2,000 health staff to build public confidence in the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.

As part of Egypt’s national vision to design fair and inclusive vaccination plans aiming to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of 2022, including refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, and foreign residents, the project will launch a social mobilization campaign to ensure acceptance and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination through RapidPro SMS messaging and social media campaigning that is expected to reach around 5,000,000 people on social media.

The Minister of International Cooperation, H.E. Rania A. Al-Mashat, highlighted Egypt’s country-led multi-stakeholder engagement framework to step up collaboration with relevant entities, including ministries and development partners and strengthen technical cooperation on health objectives to promote mutual learning between countries and partners.

The minister added that this project falls under the strategic partnership framework between Egypt and the United Nations for 2018-2022, and a new strategic partnership framework for 2023-2027 is currently being developed for path-breaking achievements in sustainable development.

On his part, Acting Minister of Health, H.E. Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, praised the role of the Ministry of International Cooperation in bolstering dialogue and cooperation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and enhance the healthcare sector in Egypt.

The Ambassador of Japan in Cairo, Oka Hiroshi, referred to the fruitful and long-term partnership between the governments of Japan and Egypt and expressed Japan’s keenness to strengthen health technical cooperation with Egypt in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Deputy representative of the United Nations Organization in Egypt, UNICEF, similarly expressed his happiness over the signing of the joint agreement with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Government of Japan to strengthen the role of institutions in supporting health care efforts and scaling up of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Notes for Editors:

The development cooperation agreements that were signed in 2021 for the health sector totaled $600 million with development partners such as the French Development Agency, the United States of America, and the European Union.

The portfolio of cooperation between Egypt and Japan, which began in 1954, amounts to about $2.8 billion across 14 projects in perse sectors, including health, electricity, transport, navigation, education, higher education, and irrigation.