Mohieldin Highlights Egypt's Pioneering Role in Climate Action through NISGP

Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects (NISGP) has been highly appreciated by Egypt's development partners at the regional and international levels.

This came during his participation in a meeting of the jury of the initiative, with the participation of Ambassador Hisham Badr, NISGP General Coordinator, representatives of the concerned ministries and national councils, and executive members of the initiative at the provincial level.

Mohieldin stated that through this unprecedented initiative, Egypt made a great contribution to development and climate action, praising the success of the first version of the initiative that resulted in a large number of distinguished projects that were appreciated at the local, regional and international levels.

He explained that the initiative succeeded in combining centralization, through the direct auspices of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for the initiative, its coordination through Egypt Cabinet and the efforts of the concerned ministries, and decentralization through the efforts and significant contributions of governorates and local bodies in different cities and villages throughout the country.

Mohieldin added that the success of the initiative resulted from its reliance on the two main drivers of future economies, namely digital transformation and benefiting from new technology, and sustainability and taking into account the environmental and climate dimensions of development projects, explaining that these two elements are integrated into the projects participating in the initiative in a way that achieves Egypt's goals of the transition towards sustainable green economy.

“The initiative is characterized by comprehensiveness, as it includes all categories of projects in large, small and medium sizes, in addition to women, youth and non-profit development projects, as well as mixing contributions of government, private sector, civil society and development finance institutions.” Mohieldin said.

He noted that the initiative has succeeded in finding a knowledge base on which to build in studies and research on economy, development, environmental and climate action, explaining that the initiative will be present at the discussions of the Africa Climate Summit and Africa Climate Week, which will be held in Nairobi next week as an Egyptian model to localize development and climate action.

The climate champion explained that the success of the first version of the initiative contributed to the good preparation of COP27 that held in Sharm El Sheikh last November, which achieved great success at the local, national, regional and international levels, pointing out that the outputs of the conference are cited and built on in important regional and international forums.

He added that COP27 succeeded in consolidating the climate action holistic approach by paying attention to all aspects of climate action included in the Paris Agreement. In addition to calling for intensifying action to reduce carbon emissions, the conference launched Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, which represents a road map to achieve adaptation to climate change. The conference also succeeded in reviving the file of climate change loss and damage through launching the Loss and Damage Fund, in addition to focusing on climate finance, enhancing investment in climate projects and stimulating the participation of private sector and civil society.

Mohieldin stressed that COP27 succeeded in refuting the claims of separating climate and development action through practical linking between climate activities and other SDGs such as fighting poverty, providing employment, maximizing the role of women, achieving food security, managing water resources, providing clean energy sources for all and protecting marine life. He pointed out that this holistic approach called for by COP27 was adopted by the UAE in preparation for COP28 and became a base for planning development and climate action.