Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad met, on Monday, with Ayat Soliman, the Regional Director for the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Sustainable Development Department for the Middle East and North Africa (MNA) region, and representatives of the international institution.
The meeting addressed cooperation in preparing studies on climate change and its impacts.
During the meeting, Fouad stressed that Egypt is taking active steps to prepare national studies and strategies on the effects of climate change and the most appropriate ways to confront it.
“We value the fruitful cooperation with development partners to confront environmental challenges, especially those related to climate change,” she said.
The Minister of Environment referred to many success stories of projects and initiatives aimed at limiting the effects of climate change, including the presidential initiative to convert vehicles to work with clean fuels (natural gas, electricity), electric buses and mass transit.
She further explained that the National Council for Climate Change, headed by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, has adopted the general framework of the national strategy for climate change.
Fouad also stressed the need for cooperation to identify areas in which the World Bank can support Egypt, such as ways to implement green infrastructure that is more capable of facing environmental challenges, and to provide models for green projects that can be implemented effectively so that partners can work with them, in addition to technical and institutional support.
Moreover, the WB regional official praised the steps and measures taken by Egypt in the field of confronting the effects of climate change, and the strong partnership with Egypt in the program to reduce air pollution in Greater Cairo.
The programme to reduce air pollution in Greater Cairo has entered a new phase of technical cooperation, which enabled us to identify the real challenges, gaps, ways to address risks and opportunities that can be worked on.
Soliman said that the WBG has a regional action plan for the climate, which includes 4 sectors of priority work areas, which are life systems such as water and agriculture, energy transmission, urban cities, and finance, which are sectors that the bank seeks to help countries determine their priorities.