Background

A 2-day event was held at the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel in Cairo on October 25th-26th to showcase and exchange solutions that address heat stress in Egypt and the Arab region. The event was an Urban Thinkers Campus, taking place under the banner of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, and featured opening remarks and speeches from Egyptian government representatives as well as high-level UN-Habitat staff in Egypt and Nairobi.

The event hosted over 100 participants from across Egypt, the Arab region, and beyond, and included different presentations and discussions around heat stress solutions.

The second day of the event included a workshop focused on localizing the SDGs. Participants were divided into groups representing different cities. Overall, representatives of 10 cities across Egypt and the Arab region used the SDG wheel to analyze progress towards the SDGs in their cities. Participants then used printed maps of their cities to map out SDG-related challenges and discuss solutions.

Summary of Key Outputs

  • Awareness and Understanding: The workshop aimed to enhance awareness and understanding among the participants regarding the SDGs, their relevance to urban contexts, and the importance of localizing them. By providing an overview of the SDGs and their urban-relevant targets, the participants gained a deeper understanding of the goals and their implications for urban development and climate change mitigation.
  • Evaluation of Urban Areas: Through supervised internal discussions within each city group, the participants evaluated their respective areas’ alignment with the SDGs’ urban climate related targets. This evaluation helped identify the existing strengths and weaknesses of each urban area in relation to sustainable development and climate change resilience.
  • Prioritization and Mapping: The participants were guided to allocate high-priority issues related to the SDGs’ targets on the city map. By visualizing the issues and their spatial distribution, the participants gained insights into the specific urban challenges and their relation to the SDGs. This exercise helped identify areas requiring immediate attention and interventions.
  • Stakeholder Analysis: The participants identified stakeholders associated with each issue and categorized them based on their influence and interest. This analysis enabled a better understanding of the key actors and their roles in addressing the urban challenges related to climate change. It helped foster collaboration, coordination, and effective engagement among stakeholders.
  • Visualization and Ranking: The participants employed the SDG Wheel, a component of the City WORKS Tool, which encompasses all 17 SDGs, developed by GIZ. This tool allowed them to position their respective urban areas concerning the goals and selected urban-relevant targets, with a particular focus on SDGs 7, 9, 11, 13, and 17. Using a ranking scale, the participants meticulously assessed the level of achievement for each target, offering a visual representation that vividly illustrated progress made and areas in need of improvement. These visualizations are showcased in Figure 1 and Figure 2 for each of the cities.
  • Open Discussion and Reflection: At the end of the session, an open discussion was moderated to conclude the findings and provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on the exercise. This discussion fostered knowledge sharing, exchange of experiences, and insights among the participants, helping to generate a collective understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and potential strategies for localizing the SDGs in Egypt.