Our SDG progress was a mixed bag in 2024: While Egypt has made progress on several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), significant work remains to reach the country’s 2030 targets, according to the UN’s recently published Sustainable Development Report 2024 (pdf). The report notes advancements in Egypt’s clean energy initiatives, but many climate-related and social goals are still behind schedule — in line with global and regional trends.

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What are the SDGs? The SDGs are a universal framework adopted by the UN in 2015 aimed at tackling 17 interconnected goals that cover environmental, economic, and social issues. Each goal has specific targets and indicators, with countries evaluated on their progress in areas like poverty reduction, clean energy, and sustainable infrastructure.

About the SDG scoring system: Depending on how countries score out of 100 in each SDG — which is broken down into several indicators — the country receives either a red (major challenges remain), orange (significant challenges remain), yellow (challenges remain), or green (SDG achieved) scores. The trend directions for each country are also broken down into colored indicators, with red signifying a decrease in progress, orange indicating stagnation, yellow reflecting moderate improvement, and green denoting that the country is on track or maintaining the SDG achievement.

Egypt is more or less on the right track: Egypt’s SDG achievement ranking saw a slight downtick this year, with modest improvements in some areas and setbacks in others. The country’s overall score came at 69.2 in 2024, down slightly from 69.6 last year, placing it in 83rd place out of the 167 countries researched in the report. However, this ranking places Egypt above the average regional score of 65.6 and ahead of all MENA countries except Tunisia, Morocco, the UAE, and Algeria.

Five of the goals are directly related to the environment — SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), SDG 13 (climate action), SDG 14 (life below water), and SDG 15 (life on land). In terms of trends, the country scored orange on affordable and clean energy — meaning that significant challenges remain. It scored red — indicating major challenges — on the life below water, life on land, and sustainable cities SDGs. On a more positive note, Egypt received a yellow score on climate action, with indications that the country is making moderate progress on getting the climate action SDG on track.

The report noted that there are significant challenges remaining on the affordable and clean energy goal, particularly due stagnating carbon emissions levels and no improvements to clean energy’s share of the nation’s power mix. For climate action, the report notes that Egypt’s progress on reducing carbon emissions to an extent that would get them on track to meet the SDGs has stalled.

What we’re doing on that front: The Madbouly government has a plant to reduce COs emissions by 17 mn tons a year through the closure and decommission of 5 GW of gas-fired power plants by 2025.

The government has been working to push clean energy and climate solutions through a slew of projects and initiatives aimed at integrating more clean energy into the national grid, reducing emissions, and encouraging private investments in green projects. We’ve seen the government lay out a comprehensive plan to add 28 GW of renewable energy to the country’s energy mix over the next five to seven years and see 3-4 GW-worth of renewable projects go live and start feeding the national grid by next summer. Meanwhile, the national low carbon hydrogen strategy maps out how the country can achieve ambitious goals to potentially capture between 5-8% of the global clean hydrogen market by 2040.

That’s not all: Egypt’s and Africa’s first voluntary carbon market launched over the summer, and the Financial Regulatory Authority has begun listing new carbon reduction projects since last month. The government sees renewables making up 18.6% of Egypt’s total energy mix by FY 2026-27, up from 11.5% last fiscal year and 13.8% forecasted for this fiscal year, aiming for renewables to make up 42% of the energy mix by 2030.

But we’re lagging behind on the sustainable cities front: Egypt’s cities failed to meet the SDG targets — which evaluate cities’ and other communities’ safety, inclusivity, and sustainability — meriting a red score. The report noted in particular stagnant progress on combatting pollution and enabling public transport access across the country.

Remember: Egypt’s air was deemed among the most polluted in the world last year according to the IQAir’s World Air Quality Report 2023, which said that the country’s average PM2.5 concentration reached a record 42.4 — 8.5 times the World Health Organization’s annual air quality guidelines. The new Madbouly cabinet has set its sights on bringing down pollution levels, with plans to set up more monitoring systems for air and noise pollution and solutions for waste funneling toward the Nile and other bodies of water.

Life on and off of land is also not making the SDG cut, according to the report. The life below water SDG — for which Egypt received a red rating — places priority on sustainable management of fish stocks, water pollution levels, and marine biodiversity protection, with Egypt seeing downward progress on ocean pollution and fish stock overexploitation. Egypt’s life on land SDG score — also red — saw the country’s already low score for land protection stagnate, with only 38.8% of terrestrial sites important to biodiversity protected as of 2023.

HOW DOES EGYPT STACK UP TO THE REST OF THE REGION?

Egypt’s SDG progress reflects common challenges across the MENA region: Many of our neighbors face substantial hurdles on environmental SDGs — notably in affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities, life below water, and life on land, where overwhelmingly red and orange scores indicate significant challenges.

The silver lining to a somewhat dour regional outlook is that when considered alongside neighboring countries, Egypt is doing pretty well in a couple of key categories. Our renewable energy expansion has earned us a higher rating on affordable and clean energy than every country in the region except Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and the UAE, which are on par with orange ratings. Our yellow climate action rating also places us on par with countries like Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia, and above Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar — all of which received red ratings.

How Egypt and MENA compare globally: Globally, Egypt and other MENA countries are working to close the gap on key SDGs, yet they still trail behind regions like Northern Europe and East Asia. The 2024 SDG Index reveals that Nordic countries such as Finland, Sweden, and Denmark continue to lead in SDG achievement.

Your top green economy stories for the week:

  • Plstka to expand operations to five additional governorates: Cleantech startup Plstka intends to expand its operations into Gharbia, Dakahlia, Alexandria, Minya, and Assiut by 2025. (Al Mal)
  • Egypt launches factory to turn recycled banana fibers into cardboard boxes: A factory under the Military Production Ministry will turn recycled banana fibers into cardboard boxes that Papyrus Australia will then buy and sell to both locally and internationally. (Statement)
  • Ikarus Electric is planning on spending at least EGP 430 mn to set up EV charging stations with 600 fast chargers planned to be built by 2031. (Al Mal)
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