G20 china_web

ADVOCACY
Mostadam's first Certified Training
Ceremony celebrating 35 Banking
Executives (November 2015)
university students to innovate banking products
and services. Driven by a national need for upgrading
public health provisions across Egypt, the Arab
African International Bank established the first
foundation for Social Development in Egypt and
the MENA Region, namely the We Owe It to Egypt
Foundation. The Foundation aims at transforming
public sector hospitals into centres of excellence
emerging from a deep belief that health and education
are the two pillars for development in any nation.
A history of being first
AAIB is the first bank in Egypt and the region to join
the United Nations Global Compact in 2005 and abide
by the four business principles of human rights,
labor rights, anti-corruption and environment to
guide its business practice and operations. AAIB also
joined the Equator principles in 2009 to extend the
sustainability practice into the business operations
through endorsing social and environmental risk
assessment into its corporate finance operations.
This competitive advantage won AAIB national,
regional and international accolades between 2011
and 2016. The United Nations Global Compact
named AAIB as one of few banks on a global scale
whose projects and initiatives embody the notion of
Sustainability among Financial Institutions.
Mostadam…Towards sustainable finance
In 2013, AAIB joined efforts with the United
Nations Development Programm, and the Egyptian
Corporate Responsibility Center to launch the
MOSTADAM Platform for promoting sustainable
Arab African
International Bank
www.aaib.com
finance in the region.
MOSTADAM envisions that there is room for the
financial sector to play a crucial role in bringing
about sustainable development creating winning
synergies that integrate the social, environmental
and economic dimensions.
The Egyptian financial sector has many
prerogatives that qualify it to take the lead. Whereas
the financial industry in other parts of the world was
ailing under the detrimental impact of the 2008 crisis,
the Egyptian financial sector successfully weathered
the 2008 financial crisis and withstood the instability
induced by two consecutive revolutions in 2011
and 2013. It managed to grow and generate sound
return on equity while continuing to help the whole
economy grow.
Still the sector is capable of more. It should be
sensitised to cope with the emerging social and
environmental realities and rise to assume the
challenge of this historic moment. The prospects of the
Egyptian financial sector to play a more significant role
in enacting sustainable development, is given further
impetus by the fact that the Central Bank in Egypt has
initiated conscious steps to drive commercial lending
to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).
MOSTADAM urges banks to join efforts to enact
the shift towards sustainable practices and to
empower calibers with the knowledge required to
make this industry change happen.
AAIB is determined to collaborate with peers
to place Egypt on the map of sustainable finance
globally and aspires to render sustainable finance
a mainstream activity.