The Commercial International Bank (CIB) announced that its Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), Dr Dalia Abdel Kader, has been elected to represent the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the Banking Board for the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB).
The board falls under the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEPFI), a development that reflects the Egyptian financial sector’s role in advancing sustainable finance.
“I am honoured to take part at a time where sustainable finance is assuming a critical role in accelerating the transformation towards sustainable development,” said Abdel Kader, “My selection to the board accentuates Egypt’s role in driving sustainable finance and provides an opportunity to coordinate efforts in Egypt and the Arab region in sustainable finance to bring about the needed systemic transformation towards sustainable development.”
She added that Egypt is the only country represented from the Middle East and North Africa region that contributed to the founding of the principles of responsible banking. CIB played a major role along with a group of 30 global financial institutions in this.
Abdel Kader will moderate the virtual MENA session at the UNEPFI’s biennial Global Roundtable (GRT), a major global agenda-setting event on sustainable finance which will be held virtually on 13-14 October 2020 in collaboration with Responsible Investor.
Held under the theme of “Financing a Resilient Future”, the GRT will bring together over 2,000 decision-makers, experts and thought leaders on a virtual event platform. It will help shape approaches to integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and accelerating sustainable banking, insurance and investment.
Abdel Kader’s session, “Is the MENA Witnessing a Paradigm Shift in Sustainable Finance?”, will shed light on why financial institutions opt to shift from business as usual to Sustainable Finance. It will see how businesses identify opportunities and mitigate risk to advance their growth, while driving the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) within their countries and region.
CIB is a proud founding signatory of the UNEP FI PRBs alongside 130 financial institutions from over 49 countries representing over USD 64 trillion in assets. The Principles for Responsible Banking provide CIB with an effective framework to systematically identify and seize new business opportunities created by the emerging sustainable development economy.
