Launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the closing session of the April 2010 Summit on Entrepreneurship, the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) is a U.S. State Department-led initiative designed to promote entrepreneurship around the world.

Encouraging entrepreneurship has long been part of U.S. economic development assistance; however, for the first time, it is becoming a primary plank in U.S. foreign economic policy.

"This is a first in the whole international economically developed world, as far as I'm concerned," says Steven R. Koltai, senior advisor for entrepreneurship in the U.S. Department of State. "The key purpose of GEP is to bolster entrepreneurial activity in emerging markets with a focus on the so-named next tier markets, those that are close to the tipping point, to go entrepreneurial."

GEP is a collaboration of public, private, and non-profit international partnerships

Although government-led, GEP is a program of primarily public-private partnerships, including partnerships with foundations, universities, corporations, and non-government organizations (NGOs) that already engage in entrepreneurship and understand what it takes to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

GEP has more than ninety partners from around the world, including ACEF, Angel Capital Association, Babson College, Bosowa Group, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, Google, IBM, Kauffman Foundation, Nile University, Saratoga Capital, Sawari Ventures, Stanford, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Partnering organizations are expected to contribute beyond their current entrepreneurial activities, either by expanding activities into a new country or increasing current activities in one of GEP's focus countries.

Political developments and youth unemployment add to momentum

Recent demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa are seen as a prime example of why the GEP's mandate is becoming an increasingly important component of U.S. foreign policy.

"The relationship between what we are doing and what we see happening in the Arab world could not be closer," says Koltai.

By 2020, an estimated 100 million Arab youth, many of them college educated, will enter the job market. Entrepreneurship represents one of the brightest hopes for expanding economic opportunity and creating jobs for these youth.

One of GEP's marquee efforts in emerging markets, such as Egypt and Morocco, is to expand angel networks.

"It's the single biggest new idea that I think we have come up with, one that will really make a difference in helping unlock some of this incredible capacity," says Koltai. "Just as the angel capital movement has become so important to startups in the U.S., the same is true in this part of the world.

Thus far, the international expansion of angel networks has been primarily in industrialized nations.

Organizing Egypt's first angel investor group

It was no small coincidence that GEP launched full-scale activities in Egypt with a highly successful Entrepreneurship Delegation to Cairo just two weeks before protesters took to the streets.

"There could be no better time than now to be doing this. The primary reason is youth unemployment, especially talented youth. Helping these talented young people in building business, creating jobs, and creating value is the way of the future," Koltai says.

During the January Delegation to Egypt, eleven prominent U.S. investors, entrepreneurs, and government leaders traveled to Cairo to discuss opportunities and entrepreneurial partnerships with their counterparts in Egypt. Sawari Ventures, an international VC firm and GEP's lead private sector partner in Egypt, organized the exchange. This was the second delegation in about six months.

"This was the first organizing meeting of the first angel investor group in Egypt," says Koltai, who, having been a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and former senior executive at Warner Bros. Entertainment, sees getting angel groups up and running as a top priority.

"Angel groups are the single best source of early stage capital," he says. "One of the things all emerging market countries have in common is that they all have a few wealthy people-certainly people who would be potential angel investors."

Koltai has been working with ACEF and the Angel Capital Association on a plan to spur angel groups in Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Jordan, and Morocco.

"Providing above market returns to investors as well as providing capital to amazing startups are the two key elements that drive the angel investing industry," says Koltai.

"One of the key organizing principals is to get people in-country to invest in their own emerging companies. That of course is what angels do," he says.

"They invest very close to home. Getting local angels in the countries in which we work to start investing in their own emerging companies is the best way to get those entrepreneurs funded," Koltai says. "Since most of these companies are growing at 6 to 12 percent per year (two to four times the U.S. growth rate), they are great investments."

Koltai anticipates that within the next quarter, funding, some from the U.S. government and some from local entities, will cover startup costs and early stage training from ACEF.

Hundreds of Egyptian entrepreneurs compete in delegate-funded business plan competition

The delegates also funded and hosted a business plan competition. More than 100 Egyptian startups competed for two prizes of $20,000 each in seed funding. "The irony, as one of the investors in the delegation said, was that the companies that won the competition would have been funded by anyone on Sand Hill Road," Koltai says.

One of the two winners was a startup founded by two brothers, 21 and 23 years old, from Alexandria.

"They were among the best, brightest, and most energetic," Koltai says, "which entrepreneurs often are. The brothers had a voice activated search engine for mobile phones, and until this competition, no one even knew they were there. These unbelievably talented young people didn't have much opportunity because of the way the country was operating."

Many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent among young people under the age of 24. In Egypt, unemployment among college-educated young people has reached 33 percent, the second highest in the world.

"It is a fact of life that entrepreneurs thrive in every country, no matter how tough things are. That's going to continue to be true. GEP is about finding those opportunities for local investors," Koltai says.