The US-Egypt Sustainable Technology Forum that was held by the US Embassy in Cairo adopted a number of recommendations in preparation for the upcoming UN Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP27), the most important of which was the need to establish a National Green Economy Council.
This council would include the government and the private sector to facilitate and stimulate the deployment of green technology solutions across different sectors. Another recommendation also included developing a regulatory framework to stimulate cloud computing — the so-called global policy of cloud computing.
These recommendations were the results of lengthy discussions during the first session of the forum. The session was moderated by Mostafa Moharram — Founder and CEO of Muharram and Partners — with the participation of a number of major international companies and their representatives in Egypt, led by Google, Microsoft, Honeywell, and Oracle.
They stressed that a council would be a good opportunity to develop integrated policies and plans to boost and increase the volume of foreign investments and provide financing opportunities for the transition to a green economy while providing packages of incentives for companies and sectors that use green technologies.
Moharram said that establishing a national council for the green economy, which includes representatives of a number of ministries and relevant stakeholders, as well as major Egyptian and international private sector companies investing in the green economy, will be an opportunity to discuss the challenges that the international and Egyptian private sector faces in the local market.
It is also a good chance for carrying out consultations on how to overcome the obstacles facing these companies in order to pump more investments in the field of sustainability and environmentally friendly projects, as well as introducing new investment ideas.
Over the past few months, a large number of companies and global alliances signed memoranda of understanding (MoU) with the Egyptian government to pump billions of dollars to invest in the field of green hydrogen in Egypt.
“This indicates that we are starting to realise the importance of the green economy as a new concept,” said Moharram, adding that the COP27 is not just a conference but a turning point for Egypt to be a regional centre for all green investments in Africa and the Middle East.
For his part, Peter Winter — First Secretary and Official Spokesperson of the US Embassy — said in his statements on the side-lines of the forum, that the goal is to encourage cooperation and partnership between American companies and their Egyptian counterparts and the Egyptian government, especially with regard to sustainable technology and green innovation.
He added that there are several recommendations that came from the conference, the most important of wish is to push for more investments in renewable energy and digital transformation.
Maha Afify — Director of Public Policy and Government Relations at Google Egypt — said that providing a regulatory and legislative framework will help empower cloud computing and then use it in projects related to sustainability and address climate change.
She also noted that the Egyptian government recently launched a package of incentives to encourage the private sector to invest in the field of sustainability, which is the first step to supporting sustainability in Egypt.
