The Mediterranean Forum, a follow-up to the Summit of the Two Shores, will be held at Parc Chanot in Marseille on 7th and 8th February. Patricia Ricard will preside the opening of the Environment and Biodiversity programme alongside Rym Benzina, Director of the Forum Mondial de la Mer-Bizerte. On February 8th, she will take part in the Emerging Mediterranean plenary session entitled “From Greentech to e-Health: how Mediterranean Change Makers deploy the new technologies at the service of the SDGs”.
The Forum, open to the public, will bring together some 500 participants from throughout the Mediterranean region to focus on tangible solutions to meet the shared challenges facing us. The aim is to assemble “all the civil societies of the Mediterranean basin” – companies, universities and research centres, regions and diasporas, and in particular young people – to address “cultural, entrepreneurial and social issues”. It is a direct follow-up to the “Marseille Commitments” adopted in 2019 at the Summit of the Two Shores.
Six main themes in focus
The discussions will focus on 6 main themes: Environment, biodiversity and sustainable development; Education, training, mobility; Inclusion and solidarity; Employment, innovation and partnerships; Culture and heritage; Regions in the face of climate change.
In parallel, a Project Village, conceived as a place of exchange, discovery and networking, will showcase projects, videos, tools and publications. The aim is to develop business opportunities.
An Appeal for the Mediterranean
A consultation process with two hundred under 40s from around twenty countries throughout the Mediterranean region was launched several months ago. The goal is to generate “realisable proposals to construct a more sustainable, more prosperous and more inclusive Mediterranean by 2030”. Their proposals, focused on the issues at the core of the debates, will be published as an appeal for the Mediterranean.