The project team for the “Simplified Peer Review Mechanism (SIMPEER)” Activity, composed by Wafa Essahli and Spyros Kouvelis, visited Cairo, Egypt, from 27 to 30 October 2019, for the third and final country mission of the SIMPEER 2018-2019 exercise.
Thanks to the mobilisation and support of its National Correspondent at the Ministry of the Environment, Mr Mohamed Eissawy, Head of the Environmental Indicators and Reports Unit, the SIMPEER team was able to meet with several representatives of the public and private sectors as well as civil society.
Three plenary meetings were held. The first, which was attended by some thirty participants representing the various categories of stakeholders, provided an overview of the implementation status of the “Strategy for Sustainable Development: Egypt’s Vision 2030”, the challenges that led to its ongoing revision, and the measures taken to address the difficulties hindering its implementation.
The two meetings held during the other two days of the mission were hosted by the Ministry of the Environment and provided an opportunity to refine the analysis with representatives of the public sector, on 28 October 2019, and with civil society and the private sector, on 29 October 2019.
These meetings were very instructive, as they provided all the information needed to prepare Egypt’s national report, which was discussed at the Peer Review Meeting in Marseille, France, on 19 and 20 November 2019, attended by the three countries volunteering for this second exercise, SIMPEER 2018-2019, namely Albania, Egypt and Tunisia. The countries that volunteered for the first pilot exercise in 2016-2017 (France, Morocco and Montenegro) also participated in this peer review meeting in order to give their feedback and ensure the continuity of the process.
The country mission is at the heart of the SIMPEER process. It facilitates adoption by national stakeholders of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD) 2016-2025, which can be considered as a regional declination of the global SDGs and strengthens the dialogue between the various stakeholders around the NSSD.
Plan Bleu would like to thank its correspondents for the SIMPEER activity in Egypt, in particular Mr Mohamed Moatamed Eissawy, Plan Bleu Focal Point.
