Ministry of Environment and UNDP signs “Strengthening National Capacities to improve Public Participation in the implementation of the Rio Conventions”

September 4, 2018

Signature ceremony at Cairo Opera House: In the Picture from Right to Left: Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn, UNDP Country Director, Dr. Mohamed Salah, Executive Director of EEAA and Ambassador Hani Selim, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of International Development Cooperation

(Cairo, 4 September 2018) The Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed today a new project document entitled " Enhancing National Capacities for Improved Public Participation for Implementing Rio Conventions" at a cost of around 16 million Egyptian Pounds. The project aims to support Egypt's efforts to meet its commitment to the international environmental agreements for the conservation of biological diversity, climate change and combating desertification, which are in line with national priorities. The project will be implemented by the Ministry of Environment through the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and funded by the Global Environment Fund.

Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn, UNDP Country Director, Dr. Mohamed Salah, Executive Director of EEAA and Ambassador Hani Selim, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of International Development Cooperation, signed the project document, which was witnessed by Dr. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment.

Dr. Yasmine Fouad stated that the three Rio conventions on; biodiversity, combating desertification and climate change, are the founding concept of sustainable development. The timing of the project is commensurate with Egypt's readiness to host the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will include an initiative to link the three conventions at the global level. She also confirmed that working with development partners would help speed up the development wheel.

Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn, UNDP Country Director, stressed the strategic importance of the project and stated that "The most important feature of this project is its focus on increasing the awareness and knowledge of school children and university’s youth to follow up the successive developments in the fields of global environment and their impact on the national environment through working with a number of schools, governmental and international universities, hoping to include these topics in the curriculum. "

The project is in line with the objectives of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development, in particular integrating and linking global environmental issues with the national objectives of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development. The objectives of this project are also in line with the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goals 14 and 15on nature conservation, and Goals 7 and 13 on climate change.

For more information, please contact:

Fatma Elzahraa Yassin

Communications Analyst

UNDP Egypt Country Office 

United Nations Development Programme 

fatma.yassin@undp.org