Greenbacks for a greener Egypt

Sherine Nasr investigates the cost-effectiveness of the millions allocated by USAID to cleaning up the environment

Since 1997, USAID has allocated a staggering $230 million to address a number of environmental issues in Egypt. Before this, no such amount of money had ever been allocated, whether by an international donor or the government, to improve the environment, a relatively new concern for Egypt. Yet after four years, the impact of all the strategies, studies and reform policies is not at all obvious. One is led to wonder how serious USAID is in addressing Egypt's environmental problems and, more importantly, how serious the government is in making the most of these funds.

Of all the sectors targeted by USAID in Egypt, the environment is perhaps the most recent. Yet many of the projects carried out by USAID in infrastructure, water and waste water programmes have had an environmental component. It was only in the mid-1990s that USAID began dealing with the environment as an independent field to address a number of vital issues, including energy efficiency, air and water quality and biological diversity.

"This is only normal because, before that time, the environment was not one of Egypt's social or economic priorities," said Ibrahim Abdel- Gelil, executive director of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA). Environmental issues were seriously addressed only in 1994, when Environment Law 4 was issued to define and regulate the environmental practices of different sectors and to stipulate penalties.

In 1995, when USAID and its Egyptian partners carried out a sector assessment, it became very clear that air pollution and solid waste management were two issues of great concern to most Egyptians, citizens and officials alike. "We worked together to design an initiative to address some of the sources of air pollution in Greater Cairo," said Mark Silverman, division chief of environment and infrastructure programmes at USAID. Silverman added that USAID and its Egyptian partners agreed to focus on two major pollutants in Cairo's air, namely lead, because of its detrimental impact on the health of children, and suspended particulate matters (SPM), which result from vehicle emissions and industrial pollution. Thus the Cairo Air Improvement Project (CAIP) was created in 1997, with the US contributing $60 million and Egypt $12 million.

One of the most important components of the project is the Air Quality Monitoring Programme, under which 36 stations have been established in Greater Cairo to monitor lead and SPM levels throughout the year. "This is the first time a network has been established in Egypt to come up with this task. Now we have very high quality data on air pollution in Cairo," said Alan Davies, office director of environment. He added that the programme recently completed its first year of collecting baseline information, used to assess the effectiveness of the other components of CAIP.

Under the compressed natural gas (CNG) segment, USAID provided Cairo with 50 CNG buses, 25 of which are already operating in Cairo's municipal bus fleet. "We provided the Egyptian government with the buses, maintenance equipment and spare parts, as well as laboratory testing equipment to make sure the buses run optimally," said Davies. Through the government's efforts, some 400 buses switch to CNG every year in Cairo.

There is, in fact, an economic advantage to using this type of clean energy. Egypt imports diesel, which is not a clean fuel. By reducing the use of diesel, Egypt saves foreign currency and uses a natural resource which is readily available. This will also help reduce the SPM produced by diesel fuel and, thus, improve the air quality of Greater Cairo.

In an attempt to curb air pollution, USAID initiated, in coordination with the EEAA, a vehicle emission testing programme. USAID provided both equipment and training. To address the problem of lead in the atmosphere, a lead pollution abatement programme was designed to relocate lead smelters, which, together with industrial pollution, are the main culprits in the contamination of Cairo's air with terrifying levels of lead. Unfortunately, the government could make very little use of the technical support provided by USAID, as it failed to extend the infrastructure to the industrial zones where the smelters were to be relocated.

Impressive as the components of CAIP may be, the EEAA's Abdel- Gelil singles out the 36 air monitoring stations established in Greater Cairo as the project's most important achievement. "Before 1997, Egypt did not have any baseline data on lead and SPM as two major pollutants of Cairo's air. The monitoring stations provided a very useful tool to measure both. Now, we can collect regular and accurate information on both pollutants and make comparisons to decide what measures will be taken in the future," said Abdel-Gelil.

Yet he asserted that the monitoring stations did not help reduce the amount of lead and SPM in Cairo's air; instead, the government's efforts prior to the initiation of CAIP should be credited, he said. In 1994 the government adopted a lead-free gasoline plan. In addition, over a three-year period, 30,000 CNG-powered vehicles came into use and 30 CNG fuel stations were set up throughout the country.

"At that time, Egypt was rated the number eight country in introducing CNG as an environmentally friendly form of energy. Now, Cairo's fuel is 100 per cent lead-free while it is 85 per cent in the rest of the country. Thanks to this government-led initiative, a remarkable reduction in lead has been achieved," confirmed Abdel-Gelil.

According to the data collected by the monitoring stations, lead levels in Shoubra Al-Kheima dropped from 10 micrograms per cubic metre in 1998 to 5.7 in 1999 and to 3.7 in 2000. "The Environment Law sets one gram per cubic metre to be the limit as approved by the World Health Organisation," he said.

The second major project, entitled the Egyptian Environmental Policy Programme (EEPP), was launched in 1999 at a cost of $170 million. Out of this, $60 million is allocated to technical assistance while $110 million will be transferred in cash to the Egyptian government if it succeeds in reinforcing the strategies that would help achieve the EEPP's main objectives. These include promoting policies that encourage cleaner and more efficient use of energy, reduced industrial pollution, improved solid waste management and the protection of Red Sea marine life.

The EEPP is a collaborative effort between USAID and three Egyptian partners, namely the EEAA, the Tourist Development Authority (TDA) and the Organisation for Energy Planning (OEP). Although the technical assistance provided by USAID helped the OEP to create a framework for a national energy efficiency strategy (NEES), the assistance given to the EEAA was less successful in achieving results similar to CAIP's.

According to a senior official at the EEAA, who preferred to remain anonymous, there was hardly any coordination among the subcontractors in charge of providing the EEAA with technical support during the first tranche of the programme. "A Policy Support Unit was supposed to coordinate the efforts of the subcontractors and the EEAA. But it hardly did its part," said the source.

Under the umbrella of the EEPP, the Red Sea was supposed to be declared a protected area. "To declare a 1,200km coast a protected area needs huge resources, including monitoring equipment, boats, highly trained rangers, etc. Unfortunately, we were given very little support by USAID in this regard," commented the source.

USAID's contribution in solid waste technical assistance, as one of the components of the EEPP, was preceded by a local effort in Alexandria, the first Egyptian governorate to privatise its municipal solid waste management system. Fifteen other governorates are presently following suit. "In this regard, USAID mainly helped with providing training of the staff that will be in charge of supervising the services introduced by the French company entrusted with the task," said Abdel- Gelil.

Although USAID has managed to tackle serious environmental problems that were hardly addressed before, many environmental experts nevertheless believe that one main flaw of USAID's environmental intervention is the very high cost of projects which tends to consume the greatest bulk of the grant before concrete results can be achieved. "This perhaps applies also to the programmes carried out by other international donors," commented Abdel-Gelil, adding that the grants are allocated according to bilateral agreements between governments. "It is not within our authority to change the terms of these agreements so that the grant may yield better results," he said.

Salah Arafa, professor of physics at the American University in Cairo stressed that Egyptians should learn to be clever negotiators. "This has to be done in the initial phase before agreements are signed. It is not enough that the money is donated. We should have a vision of how this money will be spent," said Arafa. "If we lack the vision, we should not expect others to do what is in our best interest."

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		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539
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