The CCI Project is working with 50 brick-manufacturing factories in the Arab Abu Saed area of Giza Governorate to convert their combustion systems from burning heavy-oil (mazot), to natural gas. This is a responsive, demand-driven initiative in that these brick factory owners requested assistance for such a conversion because it would enable them to meet the emissions regulations of Environment Law #4, and to reduce the fuel costs of their operations. The Ministry of Petroleum (MOP), through its Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGas) and the local gas distribution company (Egyptian Town Gas -(ETG)) agreed to support this initiative by providing the external gas distribution infrastructure to the 50 factories at its own expense in order to extend its industrial customer base.

The Canadian Climate Change Development Fund (CCCDF) agreed to fund the CCI Project because the conversion from mazot to natural gas would reduce the emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and thus contribute to Canada's global climate change efforts.THe CCI Project is executed by Roche International, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and partnered with the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA).

As a climate change initiative, the GOAL of the CCI Project is to assist the Government of Egypt in contributing to the reduction in growth of greenhouse gas emissions [the conversion of the 50 factories is expected to reduce GHG emissions by about 100,000 tonnes per year]. The Project PURPOSE is to strengthen the capacity of targeted organizations to participate in greenhouse gas reduction initiatives [all of the CCI programming is delivered as capacity-development/traing modules to an Implementation Partner Team (IPT) made up of representatives from key stakeholders from Arab Abu Saed and other brick factory cluster areas which may replicate the CCI pilot project.]. As a project delivered through CIDA, CCI has significant "development" programming in addition to the technology transfer elements. These include ecological and human-health risk assessments, and socio-economic assessments involving the brick factory work-force and the surrounding communities.

The financing structure of the CCI Project includes: 100% of the external infrastructure (pressure reduction station (PRS) and piping) paid by MOP; 50% of the internal infrastructure (internal piping network, electrical upgrade and gas burner systems) paid by CCI, and the other 50% by the brick factories, and; loans for some of the brick factory contributions have been arranged with Faisal Bank with the EEAA's Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) providing a 6% interest subsidy on these loans.