Egypt's Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad met with Ambassador of Finland in Cairo Pekka Kosonen on Monday to discuss current and future mechanisms of joint cooperation in several environment-related fields. Areas of cooperation between the two sides include waste management, biodiversity conservation, and support for the climate change issue. During the meeting, Fouad highlighted the state's interest in developing the country's waste management system over the past years and the issuance of the first waste management law in Egypt, which is based on the philosophy of a revolving economy and the involvement of the private sector. The minister added that supporting emerging markets and entrepreneurship in the field of waste management is one of the most important mechanisms for engaging the private sector, guided by the success story of the partnership in the field of biogas, through the ministry's Bioenergy Corporation as a non-profit entity to train, build capacities, and support young people to establish biogas units in rural areas. The ministry has also established start-ups for young entrepreneurs in the field of designing, implementing, and maintaining biogas units, which have so far reached 2,000 units in different regions of Upper Egypt. Fouad added that Egypt is interested in spreading the idea of ecotourism, where — in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities — the first project for the transformation of sustainable ecotourism will be launched so that diving centres in Sharm El-Sheikh, for example, will be rehabilitated to obtain a "GREEN FINS" accreditation. She further stressed Egypt's aspiration to cooperate with Finland in the field of technology transfer, especially in the areas of transforming waste into energy, electronic waste, biogas, eco-tourism, renewable energy, and solar water desalination.
