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 2020A three-day national workshop took place in Ramallah on 18-20 June 2012 on “Developing Sustainable Pro-poor Financing Strategies for Municipalities Including Cost Recovery Options, Polluter Pays Principles and Investment”. It was organized within the framework of the Horizon 2020 Capacity Building/ Mediterranean Environment Programme by the Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA) with the support of the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority.
Lake Bizerte is a major hot spot of Tunisia characterized by major industrial pollution and pressures from many other activities (agriculture, urban, transport, etc.). The Horizon 2020 Initiative, through the European Investment Bank (EIB), will support an important investment in the region for the abatement of pollution deriving mostly from industrial activities, on the basis of the preparatory work carried out by the Mediterranean Hot Spot Investment Programme Project Preparation and Implementation Facility (MeHSIP-PPIF) under the supervision of the Tunisian Ministry of Environment. The project will also be the first to be ‘labeled’ as a Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) project.
A sub-regional training course which gathered thirty one participants from Ministries of Trade and Industry, Environment, Managers of industrial parks and national organizations of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was organized by Horizon 2020’s Mediterranean Environment Programme (Tunis, 12-14 June 2012). It aimed to address the environmental challenges of industrial zones and support them to steer towards a more sustainable future.
Nineteen trainees mainly from local and national authorities of the whole of Morocco gathered in Rabat at the end of May (29-31 May 2012) to take part in a Horizon 2020 national workshop on Integrated Solid Waste Management. The improvement of the decision making process at the local and national level through the adoption of an integrated approach in solid waste management was the overarching goal of the course.
On 11-12 June 2012, a Horizon 2020 workshop entitled “Education for Sustainable Development focusing on the H2020 thematic areas’’ was organized in Tunis within the framework of the H2020 CB/MEP program in collaboration with the Mediterranean Education Initiative for Environment and Sustainability (MEdIES). This workshop was convened with the objective of raising awareness and building the capacity of Tunisian educators in promoting environmental and sustainable development issues, particularly on themes relating to H2020.
The creation of green jobs to reduce sources of pollution in the Mediterranean was the focus of a Horizon 2020 regional workshop which attracted 43 professionals from 13 countries. Currently, the cost of environmental degradation for South-East Mediterranean countries has reached 3-6% of their GDP, constituting the shift towards a Green Economy pivotal, especially when considering the increased pressures from an ever growing population. The workshop, which took place on 3-5 April 2012, was organized by the Regional Activity Centre for Cleaner Production of the Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP CP/RAC) with the support of the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE) within the framework of the EU funded Horizon 2020 Capacity Building/Mediterranean Environment Programme.
One of the most important capacity building activities conducted under the de-pollution efforts of the Horizon 2020 Initiative took place in Athens, on 11-14 June 2012. The 4-day training course was organized by the University of Athens within the frameworks of the Horizon 2020 CB/MEP and ENPI Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS), in collaboration with UNEP/MAP’s MEDPOL programme. It was a joint effort to address the needs identified by the participating countries themselves.
Two weeks before the leaders of the world gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) where Green Economy in the context of sustainable development was a central theme, the Horizon H2020 Capacity Building/Mediterranean Environment Programme organized a two-day workshop in Rabat (6-7 June 2012) in support of mainstreaming the concept of Green Economy in Morocco.
