The signing ceremony was attended by the Egyptian Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad, AFD’s regional director for North Africa Mathieu Vasseur, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) representative in Egypt Alessandro Fracacetti. 

“The project is an important building block in building the climate finance system in Egypt and a milestone in climate action and the implementation of the National Climate Change Strategy 2050,” Fouad said in a statement.

The project will contribute to advancing the national measures recently taken by Egypt about climate change, including efforts by the Ministry of Environment to ensure that national banks integrate the environmental dimension into their projects, Fouad added. 

The minister also highlighted the cooperation with the Central Bank of Egypt in building a climate finance system in Egypt.

She cited the CBE’s decision to oblige all banks to establish specialised climate units by the end of April 2023. 

For his part, Mathieu Vasseur indicated that the agency has been working on achieving the outcomes of the Paris Agreement for more than five years.

He said that this was why the agency approved more than 30 billion euros globally to support climate financing, highlighting that the amount allocated for adaptation has increased by 10 billion Euros.

The tripartite cooperation between the Egyptian government, AFD, and UNDP is a tangible and practical demonstration of how the international community can join forces to support the transition to a low-carbon economy and to adopt policies to benefit from both public and private funding sources, hence accelerating climate action, Vasseur said during the signing ceremony.