Steering Committee meeting of the Regional Center BCRC-Egypt , CICG, Room 14, 1:00-3:00 pm

BCRC-Egypt set up an arrangement to organize the Centre Steering Committee on the side-lines of the Conference of the Parties to Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm, that  was held from 6 to 17 June 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland, with the aim of  :

•         Presenting the activities of the Centre for the period 2018-2022 and approving the annual financial reports for the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
•        Presenting the centre’s activity with regard to applying for financial support to finance projects related to the management of plastic waste and inviting Arab countries to participate in these projects
•      Presenting the recommendations of the Arab team concerned with following up on international environmental agreements concerned with chemicals and hazardous waste, and the Council of Arab Environment Ministers responsible for environmental affairs regarding finding the appropriate mechanism for financing the centre.
•      Submitting proposals and recommendations to find the necessary financial mechanism to finance the regional centre so that it can perform its work
•      Inviting the Arab countries to send their needs to the regional centre in terms of training courses, workshops, projects and others so that the centre can develop a work plan for the next four years and send it to the Conventions Secretariat before mid-November.
•       Formation of a steering committee for the next four years, 2022-2025, when the term of the current committee has ended.

BCRC-Egypt decided to hold the meeting on the side-lines of the COP, in order to save the travelling expenses of the steering committees members who shall attend the COP on the expenses of their own countries. On the other hand, the presence of all the Arab focal points as observers will allow more exposure to the activities to all the Arab states and also allow more exchange of thoughts between all the Arab states. The meeting took place on Wednesday, the 8th of June, 2022 at Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG), Geneva, Switzerland.

 Attendance: 

•     Dr. Rolph Baiyt, Executive Secretary of BRS Conventions 
•     Dr. Mohamed Elkhashashna (Jordan), former President of the COPs Meeting
•     Dr Nawaf Bylise (Saudi Arabia), The Steering Committee Chair
•     Ms Khawla (Sudan) , The Steering Committee Co-Chair
•     Mohamed Aman (Bahrain), The Steering Committee member
•     Ms Amira Gouda (Egypt), The Steering Committee member and the Center Hosting Country.
•     Dr. Moustafa Hussein Kamel, BCRC-Egypt Director
•     Francesca Seni, The representative of the BRS Secretariat
•     The Kingdom of Morocco, the State of Palestine, Libya, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania as observers.
•     Representative of the Egyptian Embassy in Geneva.

Decisions:

First: Approving the annual financial reports of the Regional Center for Training and Technology Transfer for Arab Countries affiliated to the Basel Convention for the years 18-21 in the attached format (Annex No. 2).

Second: The steering committee was formed for the years 22-25 from: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Sultanate of Oman, the Kingdom of Morocco, the Arab Republic of Egypt, with the participation of the representative of the Secretariat and the director of the center ex officio, based on Article 7 of the framework agreement and informing the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States To kindly address the States Parties to the Steering Committee to nominate their candidate to attend the Committee, and to provide the Regional Center with that. The state shall bear the costs of attending its delegate throughout the period of performing his duties in the committee.

Third: Delegating the director of the center to carry out the work of the administrative structure for the next four years, appointing whomever he deems appropriate to serve the next stage, and granting periodic rewards if there are financial resources, executive projects, or any other activities carried out by the center for a fee.

Fourth: Suggestions and recommendations for finding a mechanism for financing the Basel Convention regional center in Egypt, which are summarized as follows:-

1. Inviting Arab countries to provide support to the regional center for training and technology transfer for Arab countries affiliated with the Basel Convention, according to their material and technical capabilities and experts in the field of hazardous waste.
2. Inviting the Arab countries to expedite the submission of proposals from their side to find the appropriate mechanism for financing the center.
3. Urging the countries and governments served by the center to support and make contributions to the center.
4. Hosting courses and workshops by interested parties.
5. Urging the private sector to support and finance projects, with the need for industrial institutions to participate in support and financing, and to put the slogans of companies and industrial institutions on the center’s outputs of instructions and evidence that they are environmentally friendly institutions, for example, petroleum companies and mobile phone companies.
6. Cooperating with environmental companies and associations that have an interest in waste recycling.
7. Urging NGOs to support and finance the regional center.
8. The center adopts an annual award under the auspices of one of the state parties periodically among themselves.
9. The center adopts training courses and environmental projects in the field of environmentally sound management and grants certificates.
10. A proposal to allocate a part of the annual allocations paid by the states parties to the Basel Convention and the League of Arab States to the center.
11. The matter was presented to the League of Arab States and to the level of Arab Ministers of Environment, provided that contributions from the League of Arab States are allocated to the Center.
12. Contacting Arab financial authorities and institutions, such as: Bank of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi Development Bank, and the Islamic Bank.
13. Activating courses, training programs and paid consultations from private industrial and construction institutions and others.
14. Exchanging experiences between the 14 centers and benefiting from their experiences in the field of financial management.
15. Highlighting the role of the donor and financier countries for the regional center in order to be an incentive and an encouraging factor for other non-donor countries.

Fifthly, General Recommendations

1. Inviting Arab countries to submit their requests to the Center on various issues so that it can develop an action plan for the next four years, as the deadline for submitting the action plan is September 2022.
2. Informing the center of the data and names of the contact points and any change that occurs, so that it can update its data.
3. The need to focus on the priorities of implementing activities and workshops according to the needs of Arab countries.
4. The need to focus on success stories and successful applications in the field of how to manage hazardous waste and to communicate permanently in order to be placed on the website of the center for benefit and circulation.
5. Requesting Arab countries wishing to host any activities or programs to inform the Regional Center for Training and Technology Transfer for Arab States on the e-mail kmostafa@sci.cu.edu.eg and with a copy to the General Secretariat of the Arab League at the e-mail environment.dept@las.int .
6. Urging the Arab countries to visit the website of the Basel Convention Regional Center in Egypt and to benefit from it and to provide opinions and comments aimed at improving the site.
7. Commitment to prepare semi-annual reports to follow up the progress in the work and achievements of the center and the difficulties in how to provide funding sources.