2025 Cairo Regional Forum on Financing Renewables, Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia

The 2025 Cairo Regional Forum, hosted at Nile University and anchored by the GH2 International Green Hydrogen Centre of Excellence in Cairo, will bring together governments, developers, financiers, and multilateral partners to advance investment and collaboration on renewables, green hydrogen and ammonia across the MENA region. 

Egypt is the natural host. It has pioneered projects such as the Benban solar complex, backed by the World Bank’s IFC, AfDB and EBRD, and is now home to multiple green hydrogen and ammonia developments. With institutional leadership from the Cairo Centre of Excellence on Green Hydrogen, hosted at Nile University, this forum is serving as a node for unlocking finance through innovation, inclusion, and coordination. 

The 2025 Cairo Regional Forum on Financing Renewables and Green Hydrogen is: 

• Sharing concrete lessons from project development and early-stage finance in Egypt and MENA. 

• Exploring innovative financial instruments, including blended finance, soft loans, interest rate buydowns, and Article 6 pathways. 

• Addressing risk-sharing, bankable offtake structures, and developer-DFI co-design models. 

• Integrating Just Transition principles across all thematic areas to secure community buy-in, transparency, and local value creation. 

Discussions will be underpinned by the principle that projects must be not only investable, but just, with local content, social safeguards, and benefit-sharing hardwired into financing structures. 
 
Key sessions include: 

• Opening Plenary: From strategy to delivery – scaling renewables and green hydrogen in MENA 

• Market Outlook & FID Enablers: Latest data and real-world project challenges 

• Project Finance Roundtables: Bridging the gap between developers and DFIs 

• Bankability in Practice: Fiscal tools, FX risk, and hybrid offtake models 

• Green Fertiliser as a Catalyst: Local industry and subsidy reform 

• Shipping and Steel: Infrastructure, certification, and cost-down strategies 

• Blended Finance & Article 6: Lessons from CIF, KfW, and H2Global 

• Standards and Certification: Promoting local development and EU market access 

• The Role of Renewables in Energy Security: Corridor planning and grid investment 

• Country Roundtables: 
  
  Egypt: SCZone strategy and ammonia financing 
  Algeria: Land access and permitting clarity 
  Morocco: Certification and transmission 
  Tunisia: Incentives for early-stage developers 

• Fireside Chat: What MENA can learn from MENA 

• Closing Plenary: From Cairo to COP30 – delivering finance, inclusion and impact