Activities in Egypt

Background and Objective

Egypt suffers from various kinds of pollutions including air pollution and water pollution due to rapid economic expansion or increase of population.

Sources of air pollution are mainly illegal burning of solid waste, vehicle gas emissions and emissions from industries. On the other side, sources of water pollution are mainly: domestic wastewater, agricultural wastewater and industrial wastewater. In some cases, pollution emissions exceed the national standards and these cases concentrate mainly on the Greater Cairo, especially in Qaliubeya Governorate besides Alexandria areas.

EPAP II was initiated with the aim to decrease pollution in project hot spots and thereby improve local and global environmental conditions, by enabling private and public sector industrial enterprises to invest in pollution abatement measures. The project supported the application of suitable enforcement approaches, inspection activities and the development of technical capacity in environmental institutions and participating banks. The project also helps improve public information, awareness and activities relating to industrial environmental affairs in Egypt, particularly in Alexandria and Greater Cairo and to strengthen the capabilities in the fields of monitoring follow-up and implementation.

Project Summary

Loan Projects

Second Phase (December 2006 – August 2016) (JPY 4.7 billion)

The Egyptian Pollution Abatement Programme Phase Two "EPAP ll" was jointly implemented among Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), World Bank (WB), European Investment Bank (EIB), European Union (EU), Government of Finland, and JICA over the period from 2007 until 2015. The total cost of the project reached JPY 14.9 billion and JICA's portion out of this budget amounted JPY 4.7 billion.

EPAP II project provided financing for pollution abatement in private and public industrial enterprises through intermediary banks. The EPAP II project included 36 sub-projects of different industrial sectors such as: cement, fertilizers, food, paper, petro-chemicals and others. The EPAP II project introduced several pollution abatement mechanisms as: pollution prevention, adoption of clean technology, fuel switching (utilizing less emission fuel) and introducing new alternative fuel (such as rice straw).

The end user of each project has put environmental goal decreasing the emissions within international standards and 20% of the sub-loan principal were exempted for the end users who achieved the goal, in order to give the end users an incentive to use EPAPII scheme and have environmental effect.

General Technical Cooperation

JICA's cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Environment is not limited to EPAP II, but it also includes dispatching more than 150 trainees to Japan, providing equipment, monitoring stations and facilitating the involvement of the Ministry of Environment and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) in the environmental platforms both regionally or internationally.

Moreover, JICA supports the African Clean Cities Platform (ACCP) that targets enhancing the solid waste management in Egypt and the participating countries.