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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
Spotlight on the environment
By Dahlia HammoudaCrowning Egypt's modern environmental efforts, the permanent headquarters of the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) was opened Saturday during a ceremony attended by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak. Received by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and CEDARE's board chairman Prince Fahd bin Abdullah Al-Saud, Mrs Mubarak cut the inauguration ribbon and raised the curtain off a commemorative plaque for the centre's establishment.
CEDARE began its operations in 1993 and is jointly sponsored by the Egyptian government, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The organisation was established within the Arab region and Mediterranean part of Europe to assist the region's efforts to pursue global environmental trends and support national environmental programmes.
The idea for the organisation was born at the Conference of the Arab Ministers for Environmental Affairs in Damascus in 1991. The Damascus Convention on CEDARE -- an agreement adopted at the conference -- became the primary legal instrument making the Centre's creation possible. The UNDP sent a team of experts to the region and, due to its unique location, Cairo was chosen as the host country for the Centre's headquarters.
Kamal Sabet, executive director of CEDARE, said in his speech at the ceremony that the new building -- which occupies 1,500 square metres of land in Heliopolis's central Roxy area -- was donated by the Egyptian government. The building was designed according to high-standard specifications, reflecting both the Arab and European environments. Six floors high, the building takes up only 50 per cent of the total land area, with greenery occupying the rest of the surrounding space.
Sabet identified CEDARE's main function as that of an "enabling agent" supporting sustainable development initiatives at national, sub-regional and regional levels and stimulating the implementation of international conventions and agreements in the region. The centre's mission encompasses capacity building of its member countries, promoting skills in environmental management, transfer of technologies, environmental education and development of environmental policies. Also a part of its mandate is to assist member countries in achieving goals of sustainable development, particularly in the management of fresh water resources, land resources, development and urbanisation and human settlements.
In her address at the event, Minister of State for the Environment Nadia Makram Ebeid hailed Mrs Mubarak's extensive contributions to society's betterment and said that her presence at the ceremony underscores the importance of wider regional cooperation in one of the most important fields of our contemporary life -- development and the environment.
Prime Minister Ebeid delineated the important achievements that have been made in Egypt on the environmental front during President Hosni Mubarak's tenure. Speaking of the government's efforts to expand agricultural land, Ebeid noted that Egypt has successfully increased the land acreage by one fifth of the total area, which had remained unchanged for nearly 7,000 years.
Egypt was also one of the leading nations to impose protection measures on rare natural land and sea resources, he said, with 14 areas now under serious protection programmes. A national programme designed to control sources of pollution threatening the safety of river water is also in effect.
According to Ebeid, the country is also preparing, after two years of study, to execute the largest project in the Middle East for dealing with waste and solid disposal, funded by private companies under government supervision.
Egypt's wealth of antiquities have also received their share of attention, with an ongoing and ambitious national programme for the protection of these riches from environmental hazards that utilises state-of-the-art technologies in collaboration with a number of international institutions.
Ebeid also spoke of the new national awareness with regard to environmental issues on the part of society, the media and the government. He said legislative bodies have been instrumental in halting practices detrimental to the environment, referring to the issuance of the country's comprehensive environmental legislation in 1995, which is now being used as a model in countries planning similar legislative reform.
