Egypt National Preparations

• In Preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, The Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt established a National Steering Committee for the Preparation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development on 15 January 2001.
• The Committee is co-chaired by H. E. Dr. Ibrahim Abdel-Gelil, Chief Executive Officer of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, and H. E. Ambassador Raouf Saad, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Economic Relations.
• Members of the Committee include representatives of the ministries most involved in the implementation of Agenda21, including: Water Resources and Irrigation, Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Foreign Trade, Industry, Electricity and Energy, Petroleum, Local Development, Health and Population, and Social Affairs. They also include the President of the Federation of Egyptian NGOs, the following eminent Egyptian experts: Dr. Salah Amer (Professor of International Law), Dr. Mustafa Kamal Tolba (former Executive Director of UNEP), Dr. Adel Beshai (Professor of Economics), and Dr. Mohamed El-Kassas (Professor of Science); as well as other representatives of major stakeholder groups.
• The Environment and Sustainable Development Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Global Affairs Unit in the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs act as the Committee's Secretariat.
• The Committee's mandate includes: the documentation of the progress made in the implementation of Agenda 21 in Egypt / the preparation and updating of the Egyptian National Report to the CSD/ the formulation of Egypt's position on national, regional and international issues relevant to the Summit's Agenda / and overseeing awareness raising events and multi-stakeholders dialogues in preparation for the Summit.

• The Egyptian government is organizing -under the auspices of Egypt's First Lady H.E. Ms. Suzanne Mubarak- the Children's Agenda 21 Posters Initiative proposed by the Summit Secretariat.
• The National Steering Committee will benefit from the various contributions and meetings that will be held on the national and regional level in preparation to the Summit.
• A joint African-Arab Ministers Bureau Meeting is scheduled to take place in Cairo during the period 23-24 January 2002.
• Egypt hosted a number of regional meetings relevant to the preparatory process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development:

• The Regional PrepCom for West Asia (24 October 2001), preceded by a number of Regional Arab Preparatory Meetings at expert and governmental levels (21-24 October), held at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo.
• The Regional African Round Table for Eminent Personalities (25-27 June 2001) organized by the United Nations' Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

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Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Division for Sustainable Development
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24 August 2006