Cairo-based Top 50 Women Forum is leading a first-of-its-kind initiative by launching training packages tailored to enrich women cadres across public and private organisations with skills needed to pivot on sustainability and green economic activities. Building on the success and recommendations of the UN climate conference COP27 hosted by the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the initiative will include areas of sustainability, sustainability reporting with GRI standards, and a green economy transition, aiming to integrate environmental and climate action into all economic activities. For this, the Top 50 Women Forum has signed a cooperation protocol with the Institute of National Planning (INP) and DCarbon Egypt to implement the initiative and prepare the training programmes and workshops designed to strengthen women's decision-making role in driving a climate action. The Forum will start the first executive steps in implementing the initiative as it will launch the first training programme for women cadres from public and private sectors on December 6-7, 2022 at the INP's headquarters in Cairo. Ashraf Al Araby, president of the Institute of National Planning (INP) The programme will tackle methodologies of sustainability reporting with GRI standards, thereby enriching the participants with the skills and expertise to transition to sustainable and green economy in according to the global standards. Commenting on this initiative, Dr. Ashraf El-Araby, President of the INP, stressed the importance of uplifting the skills of Egyptian women cadres in public and private sectors to pivot to a sustainability-focused career path to cope with the climate change and its negative impact on environment and economic activities. The whole world is rapidly moving into achieving sustainability to reverse the cascading impacts of climate change, El-Araby said, adding that Egypt is seeing tremendous challenges in its green transition goal, including the lack of training programmes that uproot sustainability as a concept and a way of doing business. The INP is cooperating with Top 50 Women Forum as being a key woman driving force platform that best represents women professionals in Egypt. "Women in Egypt are strategic partner and key national element for achieving sustainable development schemes under Egypt 2030 Vision. It is important to support a climate action in Egypt amidst the ongoing global climate change challenges that threaten women's social and economic stability." El-Araby noted. For her part, Dina Abdel Fattah – Founder and Chairperson of Top 50 Women – said the initiative and the training programmes are building on the recommendations made during the UN climate conference COP27, which stressed the need for taking faster action to transition to green economy. The Forum's training programme related to sustainability reporting with GRI standards aims to help better speed up integrating governance and sustainability into economic activities, she added. "We aim to empower companies to operate in accordance with global standards that are based on governance, disclosure, and corporate responsibility." Abdel Fattah said. Ehab Shalaby, CEO of DCarbon Egypt "This will help improve corporates' performance through better understanding of risks and available opportunities as well as increase their competitiveness and thereby attracting sustainable financing." Abdel Fattah further said this initiative is a proactive step to support Egypt's agenda at the UN upcoming climate conference COP27 by developing women cadres' skills and potentials as well as the performance of Egyptian economic institutions. In the same context, Ehab Shalaby, CEO of DCarbon Egypt, has said that empowering women with the needed skills and expertise will boost the transition process towards witnessing more sustainable work models. "DCarbon has prepared integrated training programme packages and will be carried out in cooperation with the INP and Top 50 Women Forum. We will first start with the sustainability reporting with GRI standards course."
