The H2020 CB/MEP programme of capacity building and environmental mainstreaming activities (November 2009 – October 2014) has supported the implementation of the Horizon 2020 Initiative Road Map and Work Plan through capacity building and awareness raising activities, especially with respect to promoting environmental integration and mainstreaming into other sectoral policies. These activities included trainings, study visits, ad hoc consultations and other activities as appropriate.
The European Commission (EC) is currently launching a new phase of the Programme that will start in 2016.
In the meanwhile, in order to secure continuity, some capacity building activities will be organised until December 2015 by the Consortium that implements the EU funded Sustainable Water Integrated Management – Support Mechanism project (SWIM-SM) through funds specially earmarked to this purpose by the EC.
For an overview of the activities that have already taken place, click here.
H2020 CB/MEP Phase I was based on a complex process of integration of priorities and needs identified through desk studies on the environmental profiles of the partner countries, an extensive mapping of the major capacity building activities undertaken or in the pipeline in the period 2005-2015 in the region, expert advice, the major inputs from missions in all fourteen partner countries, where more than 500 persons were consulted, and a series of comparisons and considerations of capacity needs and available resources. Findings and priority needs expressed by the governments and other actors of the countries were recorded and systematized. Considerable efforts have been implied to satisfy as much as possible the expressed needs taking into consideration that the resources available for this rather ambitious programme are limited and expectations should correspond to this reality.
Environmental mainstreaming, being one of the objectives of the H2020 CB/MEP acts, on the one hand, as a means, an umbrella under which the three H2020 priorities (municipal solid waste, urban wastewater and industrial emissions) are developed horizontally, penetrating all capacity building activities as a cross cutting issue to facilitate and create the enabling environment for the proper implementation, not only of the Capacity Building Component of H2020 but also of the entire Horizon 2020 Initiative. On the other hand, environmental integration and mainstreaming can be considered as an end goal in itself, and to this purpose a cluster of specific activities are foreseen in the draft programme.
The H2020 CB/MEP programme of capacity building and environmental mainstreaming activities has covered all fourteen partner countries: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Montenegro, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.
