Egypt receives $13.5M grant to protect cities vulnerable to climate change

CAIRO - 18 September 2018: As part of a 7-year plan to protect low-lying areas and coastal cities vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Egypt will ink a 31.5-million-dollar grant agreement with the Green Climate Fund and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) by late September, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation noted in a statement on Monday.

The granted funds will be allocated for an eco-friendly dike system, a sheet of rock formed in a fracture of a pre-existing rock body, to create a 60km-long wall in front of the shores of Delta governorates, Water Resources Minister Deputy for Shore Protection Affairs Taha el-Erian told Egypt Today on Monday.

Egypt, which is signatory to the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement aiming to keep global warming “well below” two degrees celsius, is implementing its long-term plan at a cost of LE 3 billion ($168.4 million) in investments, to protect all coastal areas vulnerable to erosion in the Nile Delta, the statement read.

Egypt’s Delta forms 50 percent of the country’s economic activities in fields of agriculture, industry, tourism, and fisheries, said Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Atti said in the statement, noting that Delta’s governorates of Port Said, Damietta, Dakahlia, Kafr el Sheikh, and Beheira are the most vulnerable to climate change risks, particularly the sea level rise.

Due to increasing sea tides that resulted in floods and drowning of some low-lying areas annually, the exploitation of the resources of some areas - north of the International Road along the Delta governorates - became a tall order, the Minister added.

Egypt’s Central Administration at the Shore Protection Authority (ASP), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Water resources, is already working on the dike system starting from from Burullus City to Rosetta in the governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh with a total length of 46 kilometers, Salwa Abdel-Basset, head of the administration told Egypt Today in previous remarks.

A 514-year-old citadel of Qaitbay in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria partially collapsed due to rising sea levels and erosion.

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