Thursday May 11, 2023
Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad has met with her Somali counterpart Khadija Al-Makhzoumi, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change of the Republic of Somalia, to discuss ways of future cooperation between the two countries and the signing of a joint executive programme, and cooperation to enhance capacity-building in the field of environment for the Somali side.
The two sides discussed the latest developments in the agreement on the executive programme 2023-2025 of the memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in 2015, for cooperation in a number of fields, including environmental monitoring, environmental assessment of projects, integrated coastal zone management, climate change, air quality, training, capacity building, nature protection, and environmental education.
For her part, Al-Makhzoumi affirmed her aspiration to consolidate bilateral cooperation with Egypt in the field of environment, to benefit from Egyptian expertise in environmental and climate files, to build Somali national capacities in the field of environment and to exchange experiences and expertise, as the new Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is currently being restructured, institutional systems and necessary cadres are being developed, and a strategy is being prepared for the next ten years.
Fouad expressed her desire to provide all the expertise required to support the Somali Ministry of Environment and train Somali cadres in the various priority environmental fields, especially air, water and soil quality.
The two parties also discussed cooperation in the field of waste management, where Fouad pointed out the possibility of benefiting from Egypt’s experience in establishing the Waste Management Regulatory Authority affiliated with the Ministry of Environment as an entity responsible for planning the waste management system of all kinds at the level of the republic and regulating the relations between the actors in the implementation of the system and the private sector, in addition to monitoring the implementation of the system and building on it in developing the Somali national strategy for waste management,
In the climate change file, Fouad expressed her willingness to support the Somali side in the process of preparing the national strategy for climate change, based on Egypt’s experience in issuing the National Strategy for Climate Change 2050, and the updated national contribution plan for Egypt.
The Somali Minister of Environment confirmed that her ministry is currently working to update the national contribution plan to present it before the upcoming climate conference COP28, expressing her aspiration to benefit from the Egyptian experience in its preparation.