Planning Minister, Un Capital Development Fund Discuss Joint Cooperation

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.