Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Egyptian Expatriates Badr Abdel Aaty met with the United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda Mahmoud Mohieldin on Thursday to discuss economic development priorities and ways to support financing for development and climate-related projects.
Minister Abdel Aaty reviewed during the meeting the growing challenges facing the region and their impact on development prospects, particularly the decline in concessional financing flows to developing countries. He outlined Egypt’s call for a more equitable approach to addressing the global debt crisis, including strengthening debt restructuring mechanisms, expanding debt relief tools, and linking debt solutions to investments in development and climate action, especially amid escalating regional crises.
The discussions also underscored the importance of a stronger role for multilateral development banks in bridging the development financing gap. This could be achieved through the provision of concessional financing on favorable terms for developing countries, as well as the creation of innovative financial instruments to enhance the countries’ capacity to implement development programmes and achieve sustainable economic transformation.
Both sides further stressed the need to reform the international financial architecture and global financing institutions to better respond to current global challenges. Such reforms, they noted, should reflect the priorities and needs of developing countries and strengthen the ability of international institutions to address successive global crises.
The meeting also reviewed ongoing UN efforts to advance the agenda of development finance reform and highlighted the importance of building on current international initiatives to expand financing available to developing countries and support their ability to tackle economic and development challenges.
