● Al Mashat: Egypt worked to transform pledges into implementation during COP27.
● Launching the Loss and Damage Fund is an important step in supporting the countries most affected by climate change.
● The "Sharm El-Sheikh Guidebook for Just Financing" contributes in bridging the information gap on climate finance and identifies key recommendations to ensure that developing countries benefit.
● Egypt provided a model for the continent and developing countries by launching the "NWFE" program, and we signed the first agreements to implement the energy hub projects.
H.E Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation and Governor of Egypt at the World Bank Group (WBG), participated in a discussion session organized by the IMF on "Climate Finance and Energy Security'', as part of her participation in the 2023 WBG and IMF Spring Meeting in Washington. The session included with Bo Li, Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, Tim Gould, Chief Energy Economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), Kampeta Sayinzoga, CEO at the Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD), Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman at S&P Global, and moderated by Michelle Fleury, from BBC.
During the discussion session, Al-Mashat said that Egypt hosted and chaired COP27, and the main goal of the conference was to stimulate the transition from climate pledges to implementation, in light of pledges that developed countries committed to in developing and emerging countries that were not fulfilled. H.E. added that the conference worked on translating these pledges into implementable projects to stimulate climate action and support sustainable development efforts.
The Minister stated that developing countries are often accused of not being ready to receive climate finance and the lack of clear and clearly formulated projects to attract private sector investments, hence the conference worked to highlight the efforts made by the continent of Africa through its specific strategies and national contributions to attract climate finance.
H.E. also stressed that each of the relevant parties is required to play a clear and specific role in stimulating climate financing, whether governments, the private sector or development partners, as well as philanthropic organizations that have huge resources and can represent an incentive to implement climate ambitions and attract the private sector. She added that the agreement of the international community to launch the Loss and Damage Fund is one of the most prominent results of COP27 and a major development in the world's march towards confronting climate changes, in light of how the least-income countries suffer the most from climate change repercussions.
Al-Mashat continued: “Among the initiatives launched by the Egyptian presidency of COP27 is the ‘Sharm El-Sheikh Guidebook for Just Financing’, which was prepared over a year from the Glasgow Climate Conference to the Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Conference, in cooperation with more than 100 development partners, investment and commercial banks, philanthropic organizations and the private sector, to determine the responsibility of each of the relevant parties, to maximize the utilization of climate finance and to ensure equitable access to finance by developing countries and emerging economies”.
H.E. noted that the guidebook aims to translate commitments into feasible projects, in addition to stimulating the utilization of the necessary funds and investments to support the climate agenda, adding that the guidebook provides a roadmap through which developing countries and emerging economies can translate pledges into investable projects, and provide a practical guide for innovative climate finance, capitalize on the comparative advantage of relevant parties, and promote effective joint coordination mechanisms.
The Minister added that the "Sharm El-Sheikh Guidebook for Just Financing" presents 12 basic principles that represent a framework for guiding relevant parties towards adopting innovative climate finance mechanisms and methods. It also contributes to bridging the information gap by providing a map of climate finance providers, their risk appetite, regional and sectoral focus and financing tools, as well as identifies key recommendations and an actionable agenda to define the roles of each of the relevant parties to access just financing.
Al-Mashat stated that, in order to translate pledges into implementable projects, Egypt has developed a practical guide and model for African countries, based on key principles, which are state ownership, reliance on its national priorities and strategies, clarity, commitment and credibility, explaining that in light of the importance of water, food and energy security the "NWFE" program was launched. This is the nexus for water, food and energy projects and includes clear and ambitious projects aimed at mobilizing various financing mechanisms and private sector investments, as well as debt swaps for climate action, for the first time, to support Egypt's efforts in the field of green transformation under the umbrella of the National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS 2050).
H.E. stated that the energy pillar in the program aims to convert power plants that run on thermal energy into renewable energy, through the implementation of wind energy projects with a capacity of 10 gigawatts to replace thermal fuel stations with a capacity of 5 megawatts, in line with the NCCS 2050, through which the Government of Egypt is committed to transitioning towards clean energy, thus saving about 5.25 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Recently, the first projects implemented by the private sector in cooperation with development partners in this regard were signed.
The Minister stressed that enabling countries to implement their commitments, their ownership of national plans and the consistency of priorities with international goals is of extreme importance, in addition to transparency and clarity in the formulation of projects where it is also necessary for the international community and international institutions to consider debt sustainability in order to reduce the burdens on developing countries and emerging economies to stimulate their path towards development.