The World Bank was conducting Energy and Environment Reviews (EERs) in several countries. The EERs were among the tools of the World Bank’s Fuel for Thought policy, which aimed at assisting countries to better integrate their energy sectors’ development and investment with their environmental objectives. The World Bank commissioned an EER for Egypt, which was to formulate a comprehensive, environmentally-sound action plan for the overall energy sector, and identify the potential of using agricultural waste for energy production.
The consortium of Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and Environics was assigned to conduct this review.
ERM and Environics submitted a report entitled “Egypt: Energy-Environment Review” (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETENVIRONMENT/1705736-1127758054592/20686695/EgyptEnergyEnvReview.pdf). The review entailed an intensive process of consultation with various stakeholders within the relevant line ministries concerned with refining, power generation, transport and agriculture. This was done in close collaboration with the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and the World Bank. The previous related energy and environmental policies in Egypt were overviewed and assessed through a systematic Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) methodology.
The review used the case of the transport sector at the time to analyze the related environmental impacts and formulate potential energy policies with the objective of minimizing the impacts. The policies were analyzed using CBA to select the most appropriate ones.