• Yasmine Fouad transformed Egypt’s fragmented waste management system by forming the Waste Management Regulation Law, encouraging a circular economy transition and private sector participation to reduce and regulate waste generation.
• Fouad has shifted the standard and conversation around sustainability in Egypt, allowing her to increasingly expand her career and give Egypt a platform to stand as a leading example for neighbouring countries. 
• Fouad has positioned herself to establish impactful climate and economic reforms that put her as one of the faces of female leadership in Egypt.

Why is Fouad BLAZING?

Answer: Fouad’s BLAZING design, promotion, and passing of the country’s first Integrated Waste Management Law set Egypt as a leading example in responding to a national waste problem and promoting a green economy transition.

Yasmine Fouad’s introduction and execution of the first Integrated Waste Management Law transformed years of fragmented institutional frameworks and responsibilities of solid waste management divided amongst various ministries in Egypt. The law is a key development towards addressing structural problems in the industry as well as incentivising the private sector to pay service fees. Due to this global and national struggle, Fouad received overwhelming institutional and legislative support.

This close coordination responds to a pressing national problem: the country generates around 100 million tonnes of waste annually. Strengthening Egypt’s first Waste Management Regulatory Authority enshrined the waste hierarchy and 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) principles in order to ensure waste management is properly carried out to mitigate harm to the public health and environment.

Due to a lack of proper application of laws and definition of roles among stakeholders, Egypt’s municipal solid waste management system lacked good governance and integration, causing a severe threat to Egyptian communities and resources. Therefore, Fouad marked a new beginning for Egypt’s cities and rural areas to begin flourishing. Municipal solid waste recycling rates are targeted at 60% for 2027, compared to 37% in 2024, and 10% in 2018. 

Since then, Yasmine Fouad has moved on to serve as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, a senior diplomatic role demanding global environmental diplomacy, strategic vision, and consensus-building, in order to drive international efforts. Fouad’s ability to highlight the importance of international cooperation for waste management through effective strategy between Egypt and the European Union lay the foundation for Fouad to remain BLAZING. She unified Egypt’s waste management system under a single regulatory framework despite the Egyptian government giving little attention to solid waste management, public health and environmental protection until 2018.

What is changing Fouad’s heat level?

Answer: With over 25 years of experience in environmental governance, Fouad has modernised Egypt’s Environmental Ministry. 

Yasmine Fouad announced in June 2025 that Egypt’s solid waste management system witnessed significant progress due to close coordination between the government and the private sector. Her genuine dedication to climate action throughout her life and the Egyptian government throughout her professional life positioned Fouad as a distinct voice in the parliamentary process, supported by President El-Sisi’s direct executive oversight and limited opposition.

The Waste Management Law was passed as a result of Egypt’s House of Representatives approving the draft law after President El-Sisi ratified the law. This requires El-Sisi to have strong professional confidence in Fouad, regarding her as a key national asset to develop international sustainability goals.

What is driving Fouad?

Answer: The Waste Management Law directly aligns with Fouad’s personal and governance goals of transitioning to a green and circular economy while advocating for mobilising social development and investments in Egypt. 

Fouad’s career has been focused on addressing the socio-economic empowerment of marginalised groups and underrepresented workers that bear the brunt of the fragmented system by integrating the informal waste sector, like garbage collectors, through cooperation protocols with the Ministries of Manpower and Social Solidarity. Not only does this law effectively ensure that companies responsible for producing plastic waste pay the collectors, but effectively defies a standard within Egypt and under El-Sisi’s government that has repeatedly restricted freedom of expression, association, and assembly.

Her ability to operate within Sisi’s regime, criticised for discrimination against women and with virtually no existing political opposition and restricted civil liberties, highlights Fouad as an image of progress in Egypt and for the advocacy of underrepresented organizations within Egypt’s overlooked communities.

Moreover, Fouad’s ability to challenge Sisi’s strict revival of state capitalism and subordination of private capital to the state’s needs is visible in her emphasis on advancing green economy transformation in order to support partnerships across the private sector and create recycling methods that are not only sustainable, but promote preventative measures.

Through mobilising finance, supporting a restoration economy to empower Africa’s young innovators and ecopreneurs, and setting a global standard, Fouad was able to distinguish herself as a climate leader under the Egyptian regime in order to boost her standing to qualify for her role under the UNCCD. Fouad is driven by her altruistic standing towards the environment, but she has taken proactive measures in order to secure more influence throughout her career.

What does this mean for you?

Answer: Fouad’s law is regarded as the first Integrated Waste Management Law to have a significant national impact in Egypt, making it a useful tool in reshaping how the world prioritises an overlooked environmental challenge. 

Regarded as a successful policy, this is the first Waste Management Law to improve national health, the environment, and encourage foreign investment in Egypt. Domestic public opinion is positive as well as international news coverage, highlighting positive infrastructure changes, hundreds of jobs generated, and regularisation of informal garbage collectors that run some of the world’s most successful and sustainable recycling systems. 

Egypt has consistently contributed less than 1% of global GHG emissions, most of which come from land transport and energy grids; these contributors are capital-intensive, slow to reform, and politically difficult to change. Waste is one of Egypt’s highest emitting sectors, and, by contrast, one of its most solvable. This is an easier problem for Egypt and other countries to tackle, with a direct impact on citizens’ quality of life.

Improper waste disposal—such as illegal burning, poor collection, open dumping—creates further risk for disease, air and water pollution, land degradation, emissions of methane and hazardous substances, leaving marginalised social groups most affected. Egypt’s Waste Management Law therefore sets a standard for effective and sustainable practices that mitigate the health and environmental risks growing under rapid urbanisation and limited resources.

IE x RAIA Summer Research Programme:

This article is an excerpt from a report on Yasmine Fouad produced as part of a RAIA research programme on climate leaders. For a full picture of Fouad’s climate leadership, including the sources, read the full report. This project was fully financed by IE University’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs and School of Science and Technology.
Authors: Lucía Sobrado Louzao, Alicia Hidalgo Gonzalez & Daniela Bermudez Bolivar
Editor: Francia Morales
Project Lead: Dario Hasenstab