Laila Iskander

Laila Iskander

Laila Rashed Iskander Kamel is an Egyptian social entrepreneur and politician. She is formerly Egypt's Minister of State for Environment Affairs in the interim government of Prime Minister Hazem El Beblawi.

Quotes

• In parallel, we have been taking steps to expand our use of modern methods of irrigation to maximise our efficient use of water.
  • [1]

• We are really working hard to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and we are also working on improving the efficiency of our energy usage.
  • [2]

• This is what we call the circular economy, in the sense that we turn organic waste into natural fertilisers and recycle all solid waste.
  • [3]

• We have also been well aware of the possibly devastating impacts of increased levels of seawater leakage onto agricultural land and have been adopting measures to stop this because we cannot afford to compromise our agricultural land. Maintaining agricultural land is part of the global work to reduce global warming.
  • [4]

• Challenge the definition of entrepreneurship and look at the well being of people around us. Social entrepreneurship is a transition phase. Examine the whole concept of business and profit: if it's not social, then it's bad business.
  • [5]
• On agriculture, too, we have been moving quite fast, with an ambitious scheme to coat irrigation canals to reduce the level of evaporation that comes with increases of temperature level
  • Laila Iskander speaking about agriculture in Egypt
• We are not in a position to allow the economy to slow down. We need to get the economy to grow, but we could make it grow in a green direction, and we can create green job opportunities,
  • Laila Iskander speaking on how to grow the economy
• During the past six, and since the country signed the Paris Agreement that came out of the 2015 Paris Conference on Climate Change, Egypt has been fully invested in measures to protect its shores from rising sea levels.
  • [6]
• It was impossible to underestimate the kind of concerns that Egypt has and that it is very important to stress the need for international support to face up to these as part of a wider commitment to working with the rest of the international community on reducing currently dangerous levels of global warming.
  • [7]