EU pledges to continue supporting Egypt’s green transition

14 / 06 / 2021

• Egypt
• news
• Sustainable Development

The European Union (EU) pledged to continue supporting Egypt’s transition to the green economy not only by offering financial support, but also by providing know-how technology and technical assistance to attain this goal.

Head of the cooperation sector of the delegation of the EU to Egypt, Ibrahim Al Afia made the remarks on Monday during the third edition of the Forum on Strategies for Transition to Green Economy which is organized by CSR Egypt under the patronage of Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli.

He hailed the efforts exerted by Egypt to turn into green economy.

He noted that the EU is supporting Egypt in its green transition and green economy using an 80-billion –euro instrument.

This instrument was launched as part of the external action of the EU Green Deal in order to mobilize resources for external action of the EU, he said.

“Thirty percent of this instrument will be dedicated to climate change adaptation and mitigation action,” he said.

He noted that several EU institutions are backing the Egyptian green transition, stressing that the private sector’s contribution is key for transition for green economy.

“An example that I would like to shed light on it is our support to the water sector and sanitation.. the EU has been responding to water scarcity since 2007 with more than 500 million euros in grant,” he said.

“Our existing co-fiunded programs extend over 16 Egyptian governorates providing nearly 25,000 permanent job opportunities and nearly 600,000 short-term jobs mainly in rural areas,” he added.

This will help improve quality of life for nearly 80.05 million inhabitants by 2025.

The EU wants to do more to support Egypt’s efforts to transition to green economy, he added, referring to several future cooperation plans.

He added that “The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated how vulnerable and interconnected our economies are now. Now, it also offers a great opportunity to reinforce and transit our economies to be more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive.”

The EU official noted that the European Green Deal aims to turn the EU climate to be carbon neutral in 2050

“This is ambitious strategy, it will require a massive amount of resources. It is estimated that we will require one trillion euros to achieve this target.”

“This will be done with the participation of many stakeholders, states, private sector, civil societies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).”

“The European Green Deal is boosting our efforts before all sectors of the European economy to be more sustainable, resilient and fair with the global ambition to reach climate neutrality by 2050.”

“The European Green Deal and the Digital Transformation agenda are growth models for more sustainable, inclusive and resilient economy.”