Al-Mashat, UN Discuss SDGs Financing Strategy in Egypt

On Monday, the Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat emphasized the importance of mapping the Official Development Assistance (ODA) with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be able to identify financing gaps as well as using data-driven decisions to ensure financing the SDGs.

The Minister of International Cooperation participated in the first meeting of the joint steering committee between the Government of Egypt and the United Nations tackling the first component of the joint fund for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); “Egypt’s SDGs Financing Strategy”, held by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and the UN office in Cairo, with the first priority being a focus on the health, education, social protection, transportation, water, and gender equality sectors.

In her speech,  Al-Mashat said that the joint program between the Government of Egypt and the UN aims to identify the financing gap of the SDGs, assess the current situation of the financing directed to the global goals, as well as encourage private sector engagement and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to access mechanisms of innovative finance to progress towards the SDGs.

Al-Mashat also emphasized that mapping development financing from all sources with the SDGs is the first and most important step in identifying financing gaps, and in developing a strategy of data-driven decision making to effectively locate needs, and to facilitate the committee’s work in preparing the SDG financing strategy by meeting every four months, so as to closely follow up on the work of the technical committees for latest developments.

Moreover, the Minister of International Cooperation noted that Egypt has developed an ambitious vision that is in line with the UN SDGs, as the country seeks to achieve economic and social development, alongside a green transformation, aiming to improve the livelihoods of citizens.

In the same connection, Al-Mashat expressed that with less than a decade left, it is necessary to identify the achievements accomplished up till date, identify financing gaps for the SDGs, and search for innovative and persified sources of financing.

During the meeting, Al-Mashat highlighted the efforts of the Ministry of International Cooperation to map the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the Ministry’s ongoing portfolio with the UN SDGs (ODA-SDG mapping), by creating a mechanism that was approved by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the World Bank Group (WBG), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

This was also published by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with the aim of maximizing social and economic benefits from development finance and ensuring the consistency between national priorities and the SDGs, alongside the effective management of development cooperation projects to meet development needs.

Al-Mashat added that the development portfolio amounts to $25 billion, covering 277 projects that have been mapped according to two methodologies.

The first method is the Sectoral Mapping Methodology which maps the SDGs at a sectoral level; and the second method, Project-Based Mapping Methodology, includes two mechanisms, the first is mapping primary SDGs towards each project it contributes to, and the second is multiple SDG mapping that includes the multidimensional linkages projects may have to different SDGs.

This mapping exercise showcases an accurate measurement representing progress in the SDGs, thus supporting data-driven decisions through stronger partnerships, leading to impactful results.

It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of International Cooperation launched a detailed mapping of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the SDGs last June, through which it is made transparently clear how development finance is distributed across the SDGs. As an example, SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, the highest financed goal, amounts to $5.9 billion and covers 34 projects, representing 23% of the portfolio’s total ODA.

This is followed by the second highest financed goal; SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, amounting to $5.7 billion, covering 36 projects, and third in place is SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation amounting to $4.9 billion and covering 43 projects.