Egypt's Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat and Randa Hamza, Assistant Minister of International Cooperation for Planning and Monitoring, will launch a new book, on 29 June, titled "Stakeholder Engagement through Economic Diplomacy". The book showcases Egypt's pioneering experience in the field of international cooperation and development finance, and will be published by the London School of Economics (LSE). The international book launch event will be attended by: Minouche Shafik, Director of the LSE; Carmen Reinhart, Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Professor at Harvard University; Eric Berglöf, Chief Economist at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); along with representatives from the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other international financial institutions. The book highlights the Ministry of International Cooperation's establishment of an institutional framework for Economic Diplomacy for Egypt. The framework aims to consolidate the country's economic relations with multilateral and bilateral development partners to enhance international cooperation and development financing. The book also aims to promote Egypt's successful development endeavours, and serves as a manual for developing and emerging countries to transfer knowledge and experience. It presents the modern international methodologies in the field of international cooperation and sustainable development, whilst describing how the Ministry of International Cooperation has been actively implementing these methodologies in Egypt. The Ministry seeks to utilise modern tools in order to foster impactful international partnerships with multilateral and bilateral development partners, and to accelerate the implementation of Egypt's Vision 2030 and the UN's 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). In a presentation to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Tuesday, Minister Al-Mashat reviewed the efforts invested in curating the book's content to document Egypt's pioneering experience in international cooperation and development finance. This includes the country's efforts in crafting a model for other emerging and developing countries. Egypt is a pioneer in the implementation of global sustainability targets, have lessened its own socio-economic challenges in the last few years. Pushing towards the SDGs, the minister launched the full map for the allocation of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The map showcases the Ministry of International Cooperation's portfolio of projects, with the detailed allocation of the $25bn development financing across the 377 projects. The ODA-SDG Mapping identifies the projects implemented within the framework of each sustainability goal, as well as the development partner that finances the project, the sector in focus, and the beneficiaries from the public and private sectors. In addition, the map keeps track of the impact and efficiency of the multilateral and bilateral partnerships and how they push towards the achievement of the national and global development agendas. The Ministry of International Cooperation works in accordance with Presidential Decree No 303 of 2004 to develop and strengthen economic cooperation relations between Egypt, other countries, and international and regional organisations. The decree proposes standards and regulations for external borrowing and foreign grants, as well for monitoring local borrowing entities, and for the reimbursement and the follow-up on the beneficiaries. It further coordinates the economic relations of Egypt with economic cooperation institutions, international financial institutions, and specialised agencies of the UN.
