● Egypt launched the Closing Gender Gap Accelerator in cooperation with the EBRD, the AfDB, and the AFD during COP27.

● Preparing a report with the three institutions that enhance women’s participation in confronting climate action in the renewable energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors

● Al-Mashat: Women are among the groups most affected by the negative repercussions of climate change, and it is necessary to integrate women’s empowerment policies into climate policies.

● Egypt is one of the first countries to launch a long-term strategy to empower women, and we are implementing many projects with development partners to enhance women’s participation in development plans and climate action.

The Minister of International Cooperation, H.E. Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat, participated in a high-level event to discuss women’s empowerment within the Paris Climate Agreement. The event witnessed the launch of an international partnership to enhance women’s ability to adapt to climate change and ensure a just, gender-responsive transition, with the participation of Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion at COP28, Maya Morsy, President of the National Council for Women, Odile Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and many representatives of governments and international financial institutions.

In her speech, Al-Mashat stressed that women in many societies are among the groups most affected by climate change, in light of their deprivation of access to resources, technology, credit systems, and other services, and their role being limited to specific jobs, explaining the necessity of recognizing the vital role of women in confronting climate change and integrating the goals of women’s empowerment into climate action and development projects in general.

Despite this, Al-Mashat explained that women have demonstrated in times of disasters and crises their vital role in overcoming those conditions at the level of reconstruction and natural resource management, and therefore they can play a vital role in confronting the phenomenon of climate change.

Al-Mashat pointed out that Egypt is one of the countries most affected by climate change, especially in some of the areas affected by these changes, which affects the agricultural sector and food security in which millions of men and women work, pointing out that the agricultural sector is one of the sectors most affected by climate change. Also, Women constitute 45% of the workforce in this sector, as they depend on it to provide their livelihoods, which makes them severely affected by climate change and its negative effects in this sector.

H.E. explained that the government of Egypt had already begun years ago to take concrete steps for enhancing women’s participation in the labor market, empowering them, adopting policies of equal opportunities across both genders and integrating the concepts of women’s empowerment into projects implemented at the level of confronting climate change and pushing the green transformation. H.E. noted that during the period of Egypt’s presidency of COP27, several initiatives were launched related to gender and the promotion of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.

Al-Mashat noted that Egypt launched the Gender Equality in Climate Action Accelerator at COP27, in cooperation with the EBRD, the French Development Agency (AFD), and the African Development Bank (AfDB), to enhance the ability of private sector companies to improve the response to gender equality in corporate climate governance and strengthen the relationship between the concept of gender equality and climate action in the government and private sectors.

H.E. announced in her speech that the accelerator initiative integrates with international efforts to enhance climate action with the participation of women, and that Egypt is launching a report in cooperation with the three international institutions that are partners in the initiative, highlighting women’s participation in confronting climate action in 3 main sectors: renewable energy, transportation, and agriculture. It also monitors the challenges at the level of those sectors and the available opportunities, taking into account the vital role of the government and private sectors.

H.E. pointed out that, as a commitment from the Ministry of International Cooperation to place the citizen at the heart of development cooperation projects with multilateral and bilateral development partners, the NWFE program is based on a group of projects that directly reflects on improving the standard of living of citizens, and accelerate the pace of Climate action in local communities, taking into account women as an essential element in confronting these changes.

Al-Mashat also pointed to the state’s efforts to empower women as an active element in society who are able to contribute effectively to achieving development, as Egypt is one of the first countries to launch a long-term national strategy to empower women by 2030. H.E. explained that the Ministry of International Cooperation had previously launched the Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator  in cooperation with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the National Council for Women, as the first country in Africa and the Middle East and North Africa region to launch this incentive, with the aim of closing the gender gap in the fields of work in partnership between the government, private and civil society sectors, in order to create a better future for women in the labor market.

H.E. also touched on the initiatives being implemented within the framework of international partnerships to enhance women’s empowerment, including the Orange Corners Initiative, through which young men and women entrepreneurs in Egypt are supported in cooperation with the Dutch Embassy and the Bank of Alexandria through which dozens of projects have been completed where 58% of these projects are led by women.

At the end of her speech, Al-Mashat affirmed that achieving equality and equal opportunities across both genders has become an indispensable priority for achieving development in any country and reaching its full potential. H.E. also said that strengthening climate action will not be possible without the strong participation of women alongside men in order to preserve the capabilities of our planet and ensure a better future for all.

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