ALDA’s Middle East and Africa Department core team attended this week [February 7-8 2022] in Marseille the Forum des Mondes Méditerranéens (Mediterranean Worlds Forum), organized by initiative of the French President to follow up the engagements of the Sommet des Deux Rives in 2019. The Forum was organized in coordination with the Délégation Interministérielle pour la Méditerranée, the Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur Région, Marseille Municipality, the Union for the Mediterranean and with the presence of both the President and Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation.
Our Middle East and Africa Department participated in the forum in a plurality of ways, reflecting the multifaceted engagement ALDA has in the region.
First of all, projects: ALDA team (Giulia Sostero, Apolline Bonfils and Abdelaziz Bouslah), together with Younes Aggoun, the Project Coordinator from CODATU, managed a stand in the Project Village to present the AUTREMENT project. This EU-funded project, led by the Municipality of Strasbourg in partnership with the Municipalities of Kairouan and Mahdia, ALDA, CODATU and CEREMA, aims to implement sustainable urban planning solutions through participatory processes to enhance active mobility in the two Tunisian cities. This decentralised cooperation project between France and Tunisia raised a great interest among the public, especially towards the organisation of the Forum Inter-régional sur les Mobilités Actives, which will take place in Sousse, Tunisia, in September 2022.
The Middle East and Africa Department participated in the Forum des Mondes Méditerranéens in a plurality of ways, reflecting the multifaceted engagement ALDA has in the region
ALDA is also part of two key French networks for what concerns euro-Mediterranean relations. Together with Les Tetes de l’Art, ALDA co-leads the French Network of the Anna Lindh Foundation. In this framework, ALDA and Les Têtes de l’Art participated in the Forum to represent the French Network and promote its interest and activities with ALDA has also assisted to the workshop organised by Her Majesty Rim Ali, Princess of Jordan, who has recently been appointed President of the Foundation, on the topic of media coverage and communication around the phenomenon of migration.
Moreover, ALDA is an active member of Réseau Euromed France, in particular for what concerns the programme “Jeunesses Méditerranéennes” (Med Youth). Our colleague Abdelaziz Bouslah intervened in a workshop to present the programme and highlight the impact it has had on young activists from all over the Mediterranean.
With around 4000 registered participants and 500 speakers, the Forum has been a great opportunity to connect, reconnect and share projects and ideas among the many organisations and institutions who were present during the event. With major investments from the French State and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we all hope to construct sustainable ways to face the several issues affecting this area of the world and to see a concrete follow-up to the engagements taken in the Forum. ALDA, in her role as co-head of the French Network of the Anna Lindh Foundation, also seeks to stimulate better coordination between the many networks that are already active in the region, in order to join efforts towards common goals.
