Egyptian Minister opens Post-COP26 CSOs Workshop in Cairo

Cairo, December 16, 2021: The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance workshop in Egypt to critically analyse the outcomes of the 26^th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change (Post-COP26) that took place last November in Glasgow, UK has officially opened.

Opening the meeting of the African Civil Society, Minister of Environment of Egypt H.E Dr. Jasmine Fouad said she was pleased that PACJA and its partners had chosen to host the event in Egypt.

She said as a country, they were also glad that the UN picked Egypt as the host of the COP 27 next year. She assured the African Civil Society groups, governments and people that the country was ready and in top gear preparing for COP27.

She challenged the CSOs to first take note of the key adaptive and workable initiatives that they learned from their participation in COP26, even as they look at the challenges.

Ambassador Syeni Nafo, the spokesperson, African Group of Negotiators said COP 27 will be about inclusivity, people-centred and about action, so as Africans, people should start speaking about reverse engineering the actions.

He said Africa should look at the milestones achieved since participating in COP process, and the challenges encountered for strategically delivering effective voice for the African peoples at COP27.

“Plans are needed in order to deliver on proper, convincing and winnable talks,” he said.

According to Nafor, for effective COP27, there is need for the UN General Assembly to come up with a Climate Treaty which should mandate compliance to the commitments, especially around the Nationally Determined Contributions and set out the basis for addressing climate Justice.

Douglas Rasbash, also an advisor to the Botswana Climate Change Network noted that the COP Process is failing Africa around issues of climate finance.

“How can we have climate justice if the people who are suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis are not being listened to, not being given the platform nor given capacity to amply their voices,”? he asked

 Ms. Salina Sanou, Head of Programs at PACJA set the stage for discussions around the analysis of the Post-COP 26 outcome document, aka the Glasgow Pact.