Egypt, Ambassador of UK envision stronger climate cooperation opportunities, attracting private investment

CAIRO - 4 April 2022:  The Minister of International Cooperation, Rania A. Al-Mashat, held a meeting with Ambassador Gareth Bayley, Ambassador of UK to Egypt to explore cooperation opportunities for climate resilience and innovative finance. 

 

The Minister of International Cooperation referred to her recent visit to the United Kingdom that took place in March, where she held meetings with a number of government officials, including Lord Ahmed, Minister for South and Central Asia, North Africa, UN, and the Commonwealth, Diana Layfield, the Chair of British International Investment (CDC group); and Louis Taylor, the CEO of UK Export Finance.

 

The UK-Egypt strategic partnership serves as a catalyst to growth and achieves Egypt’s key development priorities. The Minister highlighted notable successes that are in the framework of UK-Egypt Joint Statement on Economic Cooperation, where the UK renewed its partnership with the World Bank to provide £12m of technical assistance and analysis to the Government of Egypt on key priority areas such as economic reform, social development, climate and provision of essential services. The UK also funded a project to strengthen agricultural value chains and increase resilience post-C19 to deliver analytical solutions to transform maize and aquaculture value chains.

 

The Minister also referred to climate cooperation opportunities in light of Egypt's presidency of the UN Climate Change Conference 2022, highlighting the importance of developing an International financing framework for innovative climate finance based on the concepts of inclusion, equity and justice

 

The Minister also discussed cooperation between Egypt and the United Kingdom through the Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) launched by the United Kingdom, which aims to identify private or public sector early stage green projects and provide technical assistance to make these projects bankable and attract private investment.

 

For his part, Ambassador Gareth Bayley, Ambassador of UK to Egypt, highlighted the distinguished bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Egypt, and the British government's keenness to enhance ways of cooperation with Egypt in various fields, especially in light of Egypt's presidency of the twenty-seventh session of the COP27 climate summit, which was held last year in the United Kingdom.