Enhancing Climate Change Adaptation in the North Coast and Nile Delta Regions in Egypt

Description

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is co-financing the “Enhancing climate change adaptation in the North Coast and Nile Delta Regions in Egypt 2018-2025” project aimed to reduce coastal flooding risks in Egypt’s North Coast due to the combination of projected sea level rise and more frequent and intense extreme storm events. It focuses on two outputs: a) installation of 69 km of sand dune dikes along five (5) vulnerable hotspots within the Nile Delta and b) development of an integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) plan for the entire North Coast, to manage long-term climate change risks and provide Egypt with adaptability to impending flood risks. It will benefit 768,164 people directly in the coastal areas and 16,900,000 people indirectly. GCF is providing USD 31.4 million in grant to co-finance of the total project cost of USD 105 million. The rest 73.8 million will be contributed by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI), Egypt. eased frequency of extreme storm events. The project is aligned with GoE’s priorities as outlined in its Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement.

Stage of Implementation

The project has a lifespan of seven years from 2017-2025. As of May 2021, USD 11.5 million have been disbursed from GCF. The project commenced in 2018. As per the latest project implementation report available, construction of coastal soft protection structures at the 5 vulnerable hotspot locations has started.

Actors Involved

Climate Finance Fund: The co-financing grant has been provided by the international climate fund, GCF. The climate funds have a high-risk appetite and dedicated climate adaptation mandate. They also play a role in providing technical assistance, project preparation and readiness support to the recipient countries.
Executing Partner Entities: Buy-in and implementation support from the various government ministries and departments at the national and subnational level are key to the success of the project. Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Ministry of Environment Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR) as well as Coastal governorates and local communities in Port Said, Damietta Beheira, Dakhalia, and Kafr ElSheikh are involved in this project.
National Designated Authority: Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency is the NDA responsible for this project. National Designated Authorities (NDAs) are government institutions that serve as the interface between each country and the Fund. They provide broad strategic oversight of the GCF’s activities in the country and communicate the country’s priorities for financing low-emission and climate-resilient development.
Accredited Entity (AE): UNDP is the AE for this project. AEs support the NDA on preparation and submission of the project proposal to the GCF. They also partner with GCF to implement projects. They have gone through the GCF accreditation process and have the technical and institutional capacity to complement the National Designated Authorities and other borrowers to successfully complete the project.

Criteria

Strong policy environment: A strong policy environment with national adaptation planning and investment plans in place and regulations to enforce adaptation measures will facilitate project pipeline development to seek concessional finance and will help ensure that projects financed deliver successful adaptation outcomes.
Existence of Accredited Entities/National Designated Authority to access GCF Funding: Studies suggest that in Africa, reliance on International Accredited Entities constrains countries’ capacity building, thereby restricting direct access to the GCF funding. Therefore, for a more country-driven approach, existence of more domestic entities is crucial. Direct Access Entities which are subnational, national, or regional organizations that are nominated by the NDAs are an important step in that direction.
Technical and institutional capacity building: Capacity building and readiness programs within the national stakeholders for project preparation, accessing and deploying funding and monitoring and evaluation.

Applicable Countries

Even though many African countries have National Designated Authorities (NDAs), government institutions that play as an interface between the country governments and the Fund, only four countries, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Benin, have national government ministries that are direct access entities which help access the funds directly at the country level.