H.E Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat, Minister of Planning, Economic Development & International Cooperation, Egypt shared an overview of Egypt’s INFF during the FfD4 second PrepCom session on ‘Scaling MDB support for sovereign financing priorities: integrated national financing frameworks and country platforms’ held on 4 December 2024 at the United Nations Headquarters, New York.
H.E Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat shared an overview on the crucial role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) in supporting sovereign financing priorities through integrated national financing frameworks and country platforms. Egypt’s INFF focuses on measuring the financing gap for the seven priority sectors such as social protection, health, education, transportation, women's empowerment, sanitation, and climate change.
She highlighted that Egypt is committed to strengthening its partnerships with the government of Spain, INFF Facility Parties, bilateral and multilateral development partners, towards the operationalization of the integrated national financing strategy and exchanging successful practices with different countries through agile, south-south, and triangle cooperation platforms.
The full transcript of the speech is attached below:
Excellencies, distinguished panelists and partners.
As we prepare for the upcoming fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, it is my pleasure to address you today at this timely and significant discussion led by the government of Spain and the INFF Facility Parties on the crucial role of multilateral development banks in supporting for sovereign financing priorities through integrated national financing frameworks and country platforms.
Our gathering today, after the adoption of the Pact for the Future, formulation of the Preliminary Financing for Development Elements paper, as well as COP 29 and many international fora, comes at the crossroads of many global and regional developments.
Members States are in a rush to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, while the global financial architecture is changing. The extreme and multidimensional poverty, unstable global economic environment, climate change, armed conflict, indebtedness, food insecurity, inefficient management of natural resources, as well as global pandemics and many other challenges have tightened fiscal conditions and threatened the capacity of national systems around the world.
The road to 2030 became full of difficulties, especially for developing countries and emerging economies, to fulfill the international commitments by 2030 while preserving our own development gains. The funding gap has surpassed $6 trillion.
On average, only 6% of the SDG targets are on track to be met globally by 2030, with the remaining 84% showing limited progress or reversal of progress according to the Sustainable Development Report 2024.
Now, more than ever, it is time for us to think outside the box, utilize innovative and unconventional financial solutions that would allow developing nations to avoid dilemma of choosing between debt servicing and social progress.
The UN Deputy Secretary General has determined six transitions to accelerate the SDGs based on global evidence, including food systems, energy access and affordability, digital connectivity, education, jobs and social protection, and finally, climate change.
We have to work together and take these as guidance for tailoring our national key transitions and drivers of change. The increased access to innovative and just financial mechanisms such as blended finance that swap programs for development empowered by country debt platforms that bring the national development priorities to the forefront of implementable solutions have proven its effectiveness during the past period.
Derisking mechanisms are a key requisite for attracting private capital, resulting in not just increased financing in prioritized economic sectors, but also allowing for allocation of public spending on human development. Public investment governance and structural reform stimulate private sector participation in leading development efforts. The investment guarantee modalities are essential.
I acknowledge the World's Bank Unified Guarantee platform and the EU Investment Guarantee mechanism that provided additional channels for financing Egypt's private sector.
Many of the international financial institutions invested approximately 900 million dollars in Egypt's private sector companies during November 2024 alone, spanning key sectors such as climate finance, small-medium enterprises, green tourism, transformation, as well as expansion of renewable energy projects under the NWFE program.
The interconnectedness of the global financial architecture makes the challenge more complex, and development processes must follow the horizontal model, which is the true meaning of integrated development, where both infrastructure and human development are considered for better living standards.
This is very obvious in the Decent Life Initiative (Haya Karima) and Takaful and Karama Social Protection programs. The Member States recently adopted the Pact for the Future and committed to many actions, including deeper reforms of the international financial architecture, strengthening the multilateral response to support countries with high unsustainable debt burdens, improving the sovereign debt architecture and many others.
This indeed requires more resources and partnerships, and of course, increasing the voice of developing countries within the MDBs and globally.
Furthermore, an incompatibility with various global initiatives, Egypt, through the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and International Cooperation, has launched its first Integrated National Financing Strategy on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly last September in New York.
The strategy promotes sustainable development as defined in Egypt's Vision 2030 through mobilizing innovative and sustainable finance to close the financing gap and minimize future fiscal and debt risks through punch of financial mechanisms that are anchored by multi-stakeholder partnerships, pioneered debt swaps for development programs and country platforms.
Also, it focuses on measuring the financing gap for the seven priority sectors such as social protection, health, education, transportation, women's empowerment, sanitation, and climate change. It comes as part of the new operational framework for the economic development that aims at achieving the quality growth and underpinned by three key drivers.
First, using data-driven and evidence-based policy to address sectoral development gaps to invest in human capital, industrial development, SMEs, tech, entrepreneurship, and more.
Second, building a future resilient economy to ensure macroeconomic stability and implement structure reforms that foster competitiveness, macrofiscal resilience, and green transitions.
And third, optimizing resource allocation through an integrated framework that mobilizes domestic and international financing for priority sectors that accelerate progress towards SDGs. It is worth mentioning as well that Egypt's COP 27 presidency, we launched two prominent initiatives.
First, the Sharm El Sheikh Guidebook for Just Financing, which applies 12 core principles, focusing on making international finance fairer, ensuring that funding aligns with both global and national goals and bolsters the resilience of developing economies.
Second is Egypt's country platform for the nexus of Water, Food, and Energy, our NWFE program, which aims to accelerate the national climate agenda and provides opportunities for mobilizing climate finance and private investments to support Egypt's green transition, reflecting the interlinkages and the complementarity between climate action and development efforts.
Let me here mention that we were able to mobilize close to $3 billion in the renewable sector under Egypt's country platform, NWFE.
I would like to conclude by emphasizing that Egypt is committed to strengthening its partnerships with the government of Spain, INFF Facility Parties, bilateral and multilateral development partners, towards the operationalization of the integrated national financing strategy and to exchange successful practices with different countries through agile, south-south, and triangle cooperation platforms.
Thank you for having me today, and I look forward to our upcoming discussions and preparatory sessions during 2025, including the INFF partner dialogue and the Financing for Development Forum in New York in April 2025 on the path towards the fourth International Financing for Development Forum in Seville.
Once again, thank you, and I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.