For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020This initiative is funded by the European Commission through DG EuropeAid.
For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020More than 1900 professionals from ministries, local authorities, institutions, agencies, NGOs, industries, business organizations, chambers of commerce, universities and research institutes, as well as politicians and Members of Parliament, journalists, educators, etc. of 14 Mediterranean countries (see chart) have been trained in one or more of the eighty five (85) Horizon 2020 capacity building activities that have taken place in the past three years. Around 300 trainers, experts and lecturers were mobilised in order to address the wide ranging topics of the activities.
More than a 120 Members of Parliament, journalists and NGOs from 22 Mediterranean countries met in Athens, Greece on 22 and 23 October 2012 and pledged to accelerate their efforts towards a depolluted Mediterranean by the year 2020. The two-day workshop was organized within the framework of the Horizon 2020 Capacity Building/ Mediterranean Environment Programme and constituted the first international meeting of Mediterranean MPs after the events of the Arab Spring.
During this period MeHSIP-PPIF has also prepared the TORs and a methodology to establish a ‘snapshot’ of the status (validation mechanism) of the 50 projects from the H2020 Project List that have ‘financing secured’. The elaboration of the methodology has been done in close coordination with the EIB, EC, UNEP/MAP and UfMS.
A ceremony took place at the Ministry of Environment on the 16th of October 2012 in celebration of the “Charter for the sustainable development of Lake Bizerte” which has been agreed by all of the stakeholders that play a role in its integrated management. Present at the ceremony were Mrs. Mamia El Banna, Minister of Environment, Mr. Mohamed Lamine Chakhari, Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr. Belgac em Ayed, Director General of Infrastructure at the Ministry for Regional Development and Planning, Mr. Abderazak Ben Khlifa, Governor of Bizerte, Mrs. Nathalie Clémence of the European Investment Bank, M. Nick Marchesi, of MeHSIP-PPIF and Prof. Michael Scoullos, of H2020 CB/MEP.
The last few months have seen significant progress in advancing the four priority projects supported through the investment component of H2020 and MeHSIP-PPIF. The feasibility studies for the Al Ekaider (Jordan) and Lake Bizerte (Tunisia) projects have been completed allowing for pre-appraisal missions to be carried out by the EIB. The feasibility studies for the remaining two projects (Kafr El Sheikh in Egypt and Al Ghadir in Lebanon) are expected to be completed towards the end of 2012 allowing for their appraisal procedures to be launched in the first quarter of 2013.
Within the framework of the Horizon 2020 Capacity Building/Mediterranean Environment Programme (H2020 CB/MEP) and in response to the Egyptian needs to better address the challenge of depolluting the Mediterranean, a training workshop was organized from 1-2 July 2012 in Cairo, Egypt to address the case of pollution-intensive small and medium enterprises in coastal areas.
Horizon 2020, in support of the Tunisian Ministry of Environment’s efforts to develop and implement a National Pact for Sustainable Development with Tunisian companies, “locomotives” of the economy, organized a workshop in Tunis, on 5-6 December 2012, which focused on the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Podgorica, Montenegro hosted a sub-regional Horizon 2020 workshop on “Hazardous Industrial Waste Clean-up and Management”. Some 30 professionals from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro participated at the 2.5-day sub-regional training on 10-12 July 2012.
