Technical Assistance in support of the third phase of the Egyptian Pollution Abatement Project (EPAP III) (2017-2024)

Assessment of issues and opportunities to improve gender equality in industrial establishments and banks within the framework of EPAP III

Description

The third phase of the Egyptian Pollution Abatement Project (EPAP III) is implemented from 2017-2024 and provides a mixture of soft loans and grants to encourage public and private industrial enterprises to invest in pollution abatement and environmental improvement technologies. The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) is responsible for overall project management and the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) is the Apex Bank responsible for financial management. 120 million EUR in loans is provided from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the French Development Agency (AFD) and 20.54 million EUR in grants is provided from the KfW Development Bank and the European Commission Neighbourhood Investment Facility (EU-NIF).

The Egyptian Ministry of Environment (MoE) Initiative “EPAP III” with the Egyptian Environmental Agency (EEAA) as executive arm supports a greener and competitive industry through energy and resource efficiency pollution abatement measures with a focus on air, water, and waste management in environmental hotspots through a credit facility, a combined credit/grant facility and a SME grant finance window.

The green finance technical assistance component aims to

  • improve industry performance, reduce energy and resource consumption and reach compliance with environmental regulations through Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Best Available Techniques (BAT) Evaluations, Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) mechanisms
  • build EEAA capacity on industrial inspection, monitoring, and enforcement
  • support banks on marketing the EPAP III investment facility and the integration of depollution financing and ESRM and CSR mechanisms in bank operations and ► facilitate communication, awareness, and media.

No negative impact on gender equality is foreseen for the financed sub-projects implementation. However, within the logical framework (LF) of EPAP III, mainstreaming gender was not included and hence indicators and targets were not disaggregated for gender.

The Gender Assessment aims to

  • identify gender issues for the EPAP III programme, in terms of what should be done, the challenges and potential gender smart solutions.
  • look forward and identify how gender issues could be integrated into industry activities in the new follow-on Green Sustainable Industry programme (GSI – 2024-28), through key stakeholders (final beneficiaries, banks, EEAA)
  • recommend how the GSI programme could incentivise and improve gender equality in industrial establishments. The GSI will focus on eligible projects in Pollution Abatement, Decarbonisation, Energy Efficiency, Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy.

The GSI focus is on air, wastewater, solid waste, renewable energy, low carbon hydrogen, biogas, and less carbon intense fuels, resource reuse and resource efficiency.

Services

Kick-Off Meeting

Document review

Methodology Development

  • Gender Transformative Change Approach: data collection tools)

Primary Qualitative Data Collection

  • Stakeholder Engagement (GoE EEAA | EPAP III Banks | European Development Partners (EDPs) | Multilateral & National Industrial Establishments & SMEs within the petrochemical, food, and cement industry)
  • 3 KIIs (EBRD | EIB | EU), 4 in-depth interviews (CIB | Sub-projects: 2 SMEs, 1 industry), 4 FGDs (EPAP III PMU | Sub-projects: 3 industries)  

Draft and Final Assessment Report

  • Sector-specific Gender Analysis
  • Qualitative Analysis
  • Best Practices & Case Study Examples
  • Recommendations (Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs | USAID Employee Life Cycle Model & Organisational Enablers (Engendering Industries Programme) | Gender Technical Needs Assessment | The Define, Plan, Act, Check Model for Energy-Intensive Sectors | Gender Equality in Climate Action Accelerator (GECA) | Data Management on Financial Gender Gap | 2x Challenge global standard for gender finance | DAC Gender Equality Policy Marker | Results-Based Management)
  • Key Performance Sector-Specific Gender Indicators Development (Sector-Specific Gender Results Framework)
  • Identification of key challenges & gender smart solutions
  • Development of Gender Checklist as per the ‘Do No Harm’ Approach
  • Communication Guideline (visualisation of key messages on the business case for gender equality for the target industrial sectors)