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In a small home in Egypt's Qena district, along the Nile 600 km south of Cairo, the busy whir of a sewing machine penetrates the stillness of a rural afternoon. Nashwa Fathy is making school bags. She deftly eases the cloth toward the needle's path, putting the finishing touches on another item for this season's stock.

Students in a community-based school in Abou Teeg, a hamlet near the Egyptian city of Assiut, finish their day’s work and prepare for end-of-day presentations. Small groups of students present their work to the class. Their peers critique and praise their efforts, whose topics range from mathematics to science to history.

Orman Smart School is one of 38 schools in Egypt that are part of the Smart School Network Project supported by the ICT Trust Fund. Egypt 's Information and Communication Technology Trust Fund was established jointly by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MC IT) and the UNDP in January 2002 to use ICTs to further development in Egypt by increasing awareness of its benefits, and making it more accessible and affordable to all citizens.  

Raweya, a 15-year-old girl from a destitute rural area in Egypt, has a dream. Some day she will be a doctor. But obstacles loom large. Poverty, as overwhelming as it can be, is just one among many.

For millions of poor women living in Egypt, accessing basic services and rights such as credit, pensions and voting without identification cards and birth certificates is impossible. Aware of these difficulties, a group of World Bank staff last year decided to submit a project to the Development Marketplace to support women's access to IDs and BCs, in partnership with a local Egyptian civil society organization.