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Environment and Energy
Energy and environment are essential for sustainable development. The poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and lack of access to clean affordable energy services. These issues are also global as climate change, loss of biodiversity and ozone layer depletion cannot be addressed by countries acting alone. UNDP helps countries strengthen their capacity to address these challenges at global, national and community levels, seeking out and sharing best practices, providing innovative policy advice and linking partners through pilot projects that help poor people build sustainable livelihoods.
Energy and environment are essential for sustainable development. The poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and lack of access to clean affordable energy services. These issues are also global as climate change, loss of biodiversity and ozone layer depletion cannot be addressed by countries acting alone. UNDP helps countries strengthen their capacity to address these challenges at global, national and community levels, seeking out and sharing best practices, providing innovative policy advice and linking partners through pilot projects that help poor people build sustainable livelihoods.
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Egypt faces many environmental challenges. Protecting the country’s natural resources and regenerating those resources which have suffered degradation stand as important features of sustainable development and the campaign to help the poor. UNDP is helping the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs to build its capacity to manage environmental resources and to develop strategies so that Egypt can meet its obligations to international conventions and treaties.
UNDP is helping the Egyptian authorities to promote the utilization of environmentally-sound technologies in the following focus areas:
Through Frameworks and strategies for sustainable development, UNDP seeks to develop country capacity to manage the environment and natural resources; integrate environmental and energy dimensions into poverty reduction strategies and national development frameworks; and strengthen the role of communities and of women in promoting sustainable development.
Through Effective water governance, UNDP supports the sustainable use of marine, coastal and freshwater resources and improved access to water supply and sanitation services. This requires the appropriate local, national and regional water governance frameworks, and application of integrated water resources management approaches. UNDP also promotes cooperation in trans-boundary waters management.
Sustainable land management to combat desertification and land degradation aims to combat Land degradation, which is one of the major causes of rural poverty, as well as one of its effects. UNDP works to break this cycle and reduce poverty through sustainable land management and by maintaining land-based ecosystem integrity, particularly in drylands where the poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized people live. UNDP assists countries and communities in land governance, drought preparedness, reform of land tenure and promotion of innovative and alternative sustainable land practices and livelihoods. Special emphasis is given here to the situation of rural women. UNDP supports institutional and systemic capacity building to address desertification and land degradation of rural poverty reduction, through local, national and global multi-stakeholder dialogue and action. UNDP promotes the mainstreaming and integration of major environmental conventions to reduce land degradation, help land users adapt to climate change, and maintain services through ecosystem integrity.
Through Access to sustainable energy services, UNDP supports energy activities to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development objectives at the local, national and global levels. Our work is focused on strengthening national policy frameworks to support energy for poverty reduction; promoting energy services to support growth and equity with specific focus on the situation of women; promoting clean energy technologies to mitigate climate change; and increasing access to investment financing for sustainable energy, including through the Clean Development Mechanism. Activities in these areas complement and help integrate Global Environment Facility (GEF) programmes in the field of climate change and support sustainable livelihoods.
In the Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity area, through a close integration of GEF and core activities, UNDP helps countries and communities maintain and benefit from the biodiversity and ecosystem services that underpin human welfare and economic development, and provide the poor with food security, fuel, shelter, medicines and livelihoods – as well as clean water, disease control, and reduced vulnerability to natural disasters. UNDP supports the sustainable management of agriculture, fisheries, forests and energy, and a pro-poor approach to conservation and protected areas, biotechnology and the development of viable, new markets for ecosystem services.
UNDP provides advice to the government on environmental management policies, strategies and best practices. We also help to foster partnerships among donors, civil society organizations, the private sector and research institutes on environmental protection at the international, regional and local levels. One example is UNDP Egypt’s involvement in promoting the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework and Conservation of Mediterranean Wetlands.
The Government of Egypt has just finalized a National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP), with the help of UNDP. Additionally, UNDP is helping the government to create awareness and change public attitudes towards the environment. One way of doing this is through our efforts to establish public-private partnerships in the area of environmental protection.