Day: October 19, 2022

Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt, asserted that African countries are the less contributing to global warming and the most caring to invest in clean energy.

Mohieldin, UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, stated that despite the fact that the African countries’ contribution to the greenhouse gases doesn’t exceed 3%, they are the most caring to invest in renewables and clean energy sources.

Mohieldin added, during his participation in the “World Energy: Looking Ahead to COP27” webinar hosted by the United Nations University (UNU), that the energy projects in Africa are in need for sufficient finances considering that 600 million people in the continent lack to energy access, beside the negative impacts of global warming on the African countries tracks to achieve SDGs especially those related to poverty, health, climate and economic growth, and this highlights the necessity of involving the developing countries -especially in Africa- in the international negotiations on energy sector transition.

“While some countries are going back to use dirty sources of energy such as fossil fuel, African countries concentrate on using the renewables.” Mohieldin said, referring to the existence of one of the largest solar plants in the world in Egypt, beside the green hydrogen projects in Egypt, Namibia, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya and South Africa, which all aim to achieve many of SDGs despite being categorized as climate projects.

He stressed that financing climate action and energy transition in the developing countries especially in Africa in a frame of a holistic approach that aims to achieve SDGs as whole requires of the developed countries to fulfill their pledges, headed by the annual 100$ billions pledged in the Copenhagen conference for financing climate action in the developing countries, which is the pledge that has been fulfilled by only seven out of 23 countries.

The climate champion said that the climate projects in Africa is compatible with the Paris agreement in terms of implementing mitigation and adaptation measures equally, but it need technical, knowledge and finance support from the developed countries, explaining that Africa is ready to be the starting point of a just energy sector transition in the whole world.

Mohieldin also participated virtually in a session entitled “COP27: Turning pledges into plans”, with the participation of Dmitry Mariyasin, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and Esther Wandel, Head of Division for Investment Funds & Sustainable Finance, German Federal Ministry of Finance.

During his speech, Mohieldin highlighted the climate action priorities that include adopting a holistic approach that enhance local and regional aspects of climate action according to the Paris agreement in a way that help progressing in mitigation, adaptation, addressing losses and damages, and financing climate action, referring also to the importance of scaling up climate action regarding the nexus of water, food and energy.

Relating to the losses and damages file, Mohieldin confirmed the necessity of making more efforts considering the raise of desertification and drought rates in a way that negatively affect livelihoods.

He stressed the importance of scaling up private sector participation in climate action, and mobilizing more investments, especially that more than 60% of financing climate action is on debt basis.

Source: State Information Service Egypt

The “Industrialists of Egypt” initiative is considered one of the most important cultural initiatives, which have been launched recently by the State, affirmed Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli.

The initiative mainly aims to preserve the identity and its unique features, added Madbouli while reviewing a report, prepared by Culture Minister Nivine el Kilani, on the graduation of the second and third batches of the “Industrial Egypt” initiative on October 10.

In her report, Kilani said that her ministry adopted such initiative upon a call from President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in 2019, adding that the initiative aims to train youth on traditional crafts for vocational and handicraft training .

The number of youth who were enrolled in the second batch reached 75, said the minister, adding that number of youth who were enrolled in the third batch stood at 80.

Source: State Information Service Egypt

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli has emphasized the pivotal role played by the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) in the national industry sector.

This came during a meeting Madbouli held to follow up on the AOI’s development plan and the status of the national projects participating in the plan.

The prime minister hailed the AOI as a major industrial and technological edifice, and one of the most important industrial entities that contribute to boosting local production and increasing its competitiveness.

In the same regard, he pointed out to the AOI’s key role in implementing numerous national and development projects.

The meeting was attended by AOI’s Chairman Mokhtar Abdel Latif, Director General Abdel Rahman Othman, along with a number of senior officials at the organization.

Source: State Information Service Egypt

Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, met with representatives of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) to discuss ways of joint cooperation regarding the implementation of the “Climate Change Adaptation at the Local Level in Egypt” program.

The delegation of the Fund was led by Sophie de Koninck, Director of the Global Climate Facility of the Fund, Ronan Pecheur, Program Specialist at the Fund’s Climate Adaptive Living Facility, Iman Wehbe, National Advisor to the Climate Adaptive Living Facility, and from the Ministry Dr. Jamil Helmy, Assistant Minister for Climate Action Follow-up Sustainable Development, Ayman Soliman, Executive Director of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, Ambassador Hazem Khairat, Director of the International Cooperation Office, and Kamal Nasr, Assistant Minister for Technical Office Affairs.

During the meeting, Al-Saeed highlighted the priorities of both Egypt and the United Nations Capital Development Fund in the context of achieving sustainable development, promoting inclusive economic growth, protecting the environment through the green and circular economy, and benefiting from the relevant financing tools from the United Nations Capital Development Fund in this regard. .

Al-Saeed also reviewed the work tasks of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, noting that the ministry is responsible for setting long, medium and short-term sustainable development plans, preparing the annual investment plan, in addition to evaluating the proposed investment projects for each party and determining their allocations, as well as formulating the implementation of Egypt’s Vision 2030, and following up Its compatibility with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Africa Agenda 2063.

The Minister of Planning referred to Egypt’s sovereign fund; Which aims to attract private investments to Egypt and joint investment in state-owned assets to maximize their value and efficiency for the Egyptian economy, stressing that Egypt aspires to become a green energy center, which requires large and innovative financing mechanisms, pointing to the role of the sovereign fund in this regard.

On national efforts to tackle climate change; Al-Saeed stressed that the issue of climate change is at the top of Egypt’s priorities, stressing that Egypt is working to accelerate the transition towards a greener, more sustainable, flexible and comprehensive development model in its plans to recover from Covid-19 disease.

Al-Saeed also confirmed that the Egyptian government is working through a participatory approach in cooperation with relevant stakeholders on governance and the policy framework to address climate change, noting the application of environmental sustainability standards to make the national investment plan environmentally friendly, as the percentage of green projects reached 40% of the total public investments in the plan. 22/2023, and it is targeted to reach that percentage to 50% by the end of 2024-2025, which includes projects for clean transportation, water and sanitation improvement, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Dr. Hala Al-Saeed confirmed that Egypt follows an environmentally friendly and safe transportation ecosystem that reduces greenhouse gas emissions through the expansion of green transportation systems (monorail, light rail transit, and rapid transit by buses), referring to the solar energy complex in Benban, and a wastewater treatment facility on the Bahr al-Baqar Canal.

Al-Saeed pointed out that Egypt launched its national report on financing for development to identify the needs, gaps, opportunities and challenges to confront climate change, achieve sustainable development and eradicate poverty, referring to the projects implemented by the state to adapt to climate change; These include protecting the northern coasts from sea level rise, a project to rehabilitate and cultivate 1.5 million feddans to achieve better food security and compensate for land degradation and erosion in the Nile Delta, and a project to rehabilitate and renew the national network of water channels within the framework of modernizing traditional irrigation methods.

With regard to the National Smart Green Projects Initiative; Al-Saeed explained that it comes within the framework of Egypt’s hosting of the COP27 conference, as the initiative represents a sincere effort to confront climate change in a comprehensive approach to achieve all sustainable development goals. Funding and attracting the necessary investments, while raising awareness regarding climate change at the local level, pointing to the COP27 Conference and Solutions Day organized by the Ministry to share best practices and lessons learned and show the link between innovative solutions and efforts to promote climate action.

Al-Saeed also stressed the importance of working to localize the sustainable development goals, as they are a guiding principle for building a more resilient economy and society capable of withstanding unexpected negative shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and boosting growth, noting that implementing and identifying gaps to achieve sustainable development goals at the local level ensures achieving Inclusive growth and the implementation of the principle of leaving no one behind, explaining that Egypt has prioritized addressing development gaps at the governorate level to eliminate inequality, pointing out that the Ministry of Planning, for the first time in Egypt and the region, issued 27 reports to localize the sustainable development goals in 27 governorates.

And on the “Decent Life” initiative; Dr. Hala Al-Saeed said that it aims to develop rural communities by reducing poverty and multidimensional unemployment rates with the aim of improving the quality of life in the most needy villages, as the initiative targets 60% of the total population of Egypt, stressing that the initiative takes into account basic green standards as green building standards are applied, She referred to the village of “Fares” in Aswan Governorate as the first sustainable and green village in Egypt, which will be presented as a model at the COP27 climate conference.

Source: State Information Service Egypt

Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Sewilam participated in the session “Harnessing Science, Technology and Innovation to enhance connectivity between Water, Energy and Food”.

Sewilam delivered a speech in which he pointed out that there are many challenges facing the water sector in Egypt, which is reflected in food security.

Sweilem stressed the importance of water, energy and food interdependence to achieve food security and address the many challenges facing the water and food sectors in Egypt and the world, while strengthening cooperation between countries under the umbrella of “water-energy and food”.

He added that the future will witness the expansion of the use of desalination in food production to face the population increase, provided that the water unit is used optimally to achieve economic feasibility, with the importance of expanding the use of modern technology and renewable energy in desalination, which will contribute to reducing the cost.

Source: State Information Service Egypt