Green Economy in the Mediterranean region
Last 6th of April 2013 in Marseille took place the first eco-forum workshop on Green Economy in the Mediterranean region in the framework of the Anna Lindh Forum. Around 50 representatives of civil society organizations, policy-makers and thematic experts from across the Euro-Mediterranean region discussed common challenges related to sustainable development such as job creations, social inclusion and environmental protection.
It has been widely recognised that the Mediterranean countries are suffering interconnected social, economic and environmental crisis with dramatic impact on the quality of life of its inhabitants: high unemployment rate, great poverty and inequality gap, weak governance mechanisms, costly climatic events and natural resources scarcity. The existing development models based on high carbon footprint, short term benefits and aggressive competition have to be reinvented to be successful. In this context, the reflection was on the promotion of economic activities having a positive environmental and social impact on the society.
After an inspiring opening by Emmanuel Delannoy, director of the Inspire Institut, a roundtable with high level speakers moderated by Hugues Ravenel, directeur of Plan Bleu took place with Sotiris Varouxakis, Deputy Secretary General Secretariat of the Union of the Mediterranean; Anja Stoll, responsible for partnerships at Euromed & Kedge Management School; Hadrien Michel, economist at the World Bank and Mohamed Ftouhi, Professeur at Université Mohamed V Souissi- Rabat and member of RAED & MIO-ECSDE associations.
Program_MarseilleForum_2013 Then the debate was open more broadly with opening remark by Sarah Ozacky from the Association of Environmental Justice (Israel); Jorge Rocha, artist at Xerem (Portugal) and Rilli Lappalainen from the Finnish NGDO platform to the EU.
Finally a workshop facilitated by Mathieu Durrande of ecodigma allows a deeper reflection in small groups of the challenges and opportunities related to the green economy.
The general outcomes of the workshops were the need to raise awareness and educate the current and future opinion leaders and decision makers around sustainability, the importance of sharing broadly the information and knowledge tough open source innovative tools and the necessity of a renewal of ethics and shared human value by Mediterranean citizens.
You can contact Elena Lodos (elena.lodos@eco-union.org), Marseille delegate or Jeremie Fosse (jeremie.fosse@eco-union.org), eco-union president & eco-forum director for more information.