Commercial International Bank of Egypt (CIB), Egypt's largest private sector bank, participated in the United Nations' Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Multi-stakeholder Platform for Protecting Biodiversity, held in Beirut. Dalia A. Kader, CIB's Chief Sustainability Officer, was invited to present her insights about the role of finance in protecting biodiversity, and share the experience of CIB in this respect in a highly interactive session titled "Access to Finance for Biodiversity Conservation Projects." In her presentation, Kader referred to biodiversity as the next big concern for the financial industry after climate change, both of which are interrelated and constitute "dependencies and impacts" for their direct operations as well as their financial portfolios. Kader started by profiling the global financial architecture and the current systemic gap caused by modern "education" and "accounting." She stated, "The world is still not on track redressing climate change and SDGs, because the foundation is inherently defected." The aspired system transformation and sustainable development are – though driven by original concepts – still based on archaic education system and accounting, both of which failed to account for the externalities. She elaborated that CIB has a pioneering experience in monetizing the social and environmental impact following its successful issuance of Egypt's first private sector's green bond with $100m in cooperation with IFC and demonstrated to its clients the business case of adaptation finance mainly in water desalination and treatment. Kader introduced to the ESCWA participants CIB's innovative business model "Brain Trust" which is well-designed to support the business case of biodiversity finance. Keen on mainstreaming biodiversity in its business operations, CIB's presence has extended to include representatives including Tarek Ziad and Lamiaa Yousry, assistant vice presidents of CIB's Global Customer Relations, who have been engaged in the working group discussions.
