Throughout 2012, Egypt's Social Fund for Development (SFD) signed a number of contracts with foreign countries totalling $418m. The SFD's yearly report stated that a total of $190m in loans to fund small scale development projects, in addition to $228m in grants to fund worker development programmes and improve non-financial state social services, had been received by the SFD. The report further stated that the SFD had made available through banks, civil society organisations and direct lending, over EGP 2.103bn to borrowers in 164,158 separate loans, with the potential of a total of 209,521 new job opportunities throughout Egypt. In 2012, the SFD provided financing for over 16,000 small-scale development projects in a series of loans ranging from EGP 10,000 to EGP 2m, together totalling nearly EGP 500m. The SFD also provided direct lending services to borrowers for small-scale development projects through ten separate banks and private companies. These services were estimated to have the potential to create 47,000 new jobs. Throughout 2012 the SFD signed a total of 75 new contracts, their total value estimated at EGP 381m, to provide funding for a number of microenterprises through civil society organisations. Total outgoing figures for the SFD's activities in 2012 showed that over EGP 628m had been provided to over 147,000 borrowers, to fund projects estimated to create 162,000 new jobs.
