“USAID provides $76M-grant to support Egypt SMEs”
(see the link in the comments section below)
The first thing you need to know about the US Agency for International Development is that it has been part of the State Department since the Bush administration. It is an instrument for furthering US foreign policy, no more, no less.
As USAID states on its website, “U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America’s interests while improving lives in the developing world.” Notice, they don’t specify whose lives they are trying to improve. Certainly not the lives of the population.
Under the pretext of providing support for SMEs, the State Department uses USAID to create and sustain loyalty and obedience among select individuals and groups among the domestic business elites of strategically important countries; undermining popular movements and subverting any democratic trends that may threaten corporate domination.
USAID funding goes to hand-picked NGOs and business contractors. Who spends the money, what projects it is used for, and how they will be developed and managed is completely under the control of the US government, with no domestic oversight or accountability. This creates a direct and dependent connection between local business elites and the American State Department, making them collaborative agents of US foreign policy in their own countries.
For this reason, Rafael Correa kicked USAID out of Ecuador.
In response the US expressed contempt for Correa’s “obsession with ensuring sovereign control”. He didn’t seem to understand that his function as president of Ecuador was to serve American policy objectives. Clearly, Sisi has a far better understanding of his institutional role in the corporate imperial system