Ashraf AboArafe
18 January 2022, CAIRO – During his visit to Egypt, COP President Alok Sharma welcomed the Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) programme launching in Egypt, as part of the UK’s continuous support for transformational global climate action. After the successful COP26 in Glasgow, the UK is working with Egypt and other countries through programmes such as the CFA to help boost green investment opportunities and keep 1.5°C within reach.
The CFA is a £10 million technical assistance programme designed to enable investment in ambitious climate solutions, funded by the UK Government’s International Climate Finance. The programme’s expansion to Egypt demonstrates the UK’s ongoing commitment to collaboration on climate, which is set to go from strength to strength in the run up to Egypt’s COP27 Presidency.
The CFA will respond directly to the urgency and scale of the climate needs on the ground. It will do this by supporting promising climate projects in priority low-carbon sectors, such as clean energy, to become more bankable and appealing to investors, so that they can fulfil their potential and secure funding more readily. This could help generate future green jobs in Egypt.
To ensure that CFA projects are in the best position to attract investment from Egyptian and international financiers, the programme will provide capacity building support to local partners in areas such as clean technology, blending green finance from public and private sources, as well as advice on enhancing gender, equality and social inclusion in climate action.
The Rt Honourable Greg Hands, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, at the UK Government Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy said:
“The Climate Finance Accelerator will help to build a pipeline of highly
promising, low carbon projects across Egypt.
“This will help to boost green investment and support the public and private sectors efforts to tackle the climate crisis ahead of COP27 in Egypt.”
The CFA is already operational in six countries globally and is being delivered by an alliance of climate finance experts, led PwC and Ricardo Energy & Environment. A competitive procurement process will be launched to identify a partner that will lead delivery of the programme in Egypt, working closely with the wider global delivery team.
