During HLPF 2023 activities in NY:The Minister of Planning and Economic Development meets the Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program to strengthen cooperation

H.E. Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, met recently with Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director to strengthen cooperation.

 

The meeting took place on the sidelines of HLPF 2023, which took place from 10 to 19 July 2023 in New York. It was under the theme ‘Accelerating the recovery from Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels’.

 

The meeting featured Dr. Mona Essam, Assistant Minister for Sustainable Development Affairs. In addition, Ambassador Osama Abdel Khalek, Egypt's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, and Egypt's Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

 

El-Said explained that the meeting came at a pivotal moment in approaching the summit of the Sustainable Development Goals. This presents a wide range of development challenges and provides an unprecedented opportunity to radically change course in the middle of the road to the 2030 Agenda.

 

El-Said highlighted the “Cairo Center for the Localization of SDGs" which the ministry announced to host on the sidelines of Cop 27 in cooperation with UN-Habitat and the United Nations Development Programme. She looked forward to Habitat for the Center support as one of the most prominent ongoing projects.

El-Said explained that the center represents an excellent opportunity to build innovative work capabilities, and access methodologies and tools to localize sustainable development goals. She noted the Egyptian government's enthusiasm to host the first local center 2030 of its kind in the region.

She added that the Cairo Center is an Egyptian center of excellence in sustainable development and Africa's Agenda 2063.

El-Said said that the Ministry of Planning, with the support of UN-Habitat and UNDP teams in Cairo, defined the vision, mission, goals, and main activities of the local center in Cairo.

El-Said affirmed that Egypt is currently focusing on localizing sustainable development goals at the governorate level, with many efforts being made in cooperation with the United Nations system.

El-Said also expressed her appreciation for Ms. Maimunah’s participation in the side event on the sidelines of the high-level political forum to present the Egyptian experience in preparing local voluntary reports.

El-Said referred to the support provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to the Ministry of Planning in completing the 2nd of the reports on the localization of sustainable development goals for 27 Egyptian governorates, announcing an increase in the coverage of indicators from 32 indicators in 2020 to about 45 hands in 2023.

El-Said discussed Cairo's hosting of the World Urban Forum next year, adding that this is the first time in more than 20 years that the forum has returned to the African continent. This gives Egypt significant pride in choosing this opportunity.

El-Said explained that the Ministry of Planning, in cooperation with UN-Habitat, organized a workshop on applying the "DEGURBA" degree of urbanization approach to produce comparable data in Egypt, "May 2023."

 

El-Said added that this workshop is the first step towards putting the partnership into practice, as the DEGURBA project will be presented, with its own methodology, and applied training on its use to measure some indicators of the sustainable development goals, in addition to agreeing on an implementation plan to implement this approach in Egypt based on what was discussed during the workshop.

 

El-Said also stressed that the establishment of a sustainable environmental system, and therefore eco-friendly cities, remains a top priority for Egypt. This is embodied in the 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy for Egypt and one of its main priorities for the Decade of Action. This is to achieve sustainable development goals.

 

El-Said added that sustainable growth can only be achieved with more dynamic private sector participation and international partners.

 

For her part, Ms. Maimunah thanked her for inviting her to participate in the side event organized by the Ministry on the sidelines of the forum's activities. She also thanked her for the efforts made to localize the sustainable development goals and to take the matter seriously.

 

She also stressed the importance of publicizing the forum to agree on a specific format for the forum. She also stressed the participation of all stakeholders. She explained that the localization process will become one of the most high-impact initiatives at the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals Summit.