In the frame of the 9th edition of the Mediterranean Week of Economic Leaders that was held from the 25th to 27th of November in Barcelona, MedCities and Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASCAME) organised the MedaCity Forum

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Last 26 November afternoon, MedCities and ASCAME celebrated the 7th Mediterranean Economic Cities Forum (MedaCity). The event focused on the Mediterranean city values in designing the future, an analysis of the challenges that Mediterranean cities are facing in that sense, and the challenges to face to succeed in the path to the Smart solutions.

Representatives of economic and political institutions, cities, companies and civil society were invited to participate in the forum in order share different points of views on the topic.

M. Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, M. Anwar Zibaoui, ASCAME Coordinator and Xavier Tiana, MedCities Secretary General, opened the forum. The interventions of the different roundtables aimed at discuss on the Mediterranean Smart City model and the need to implement smart solutions in the public policies of the Mediterranean cities. Some of the main ideas debated were as follows:

• Smart Cities go far beyond technology. Cities are the engine of economic growth. As a nation’s primary source of job creation and wealth generation, cities produce goods and provide services, which strengthen the economic opportunities for the entire country.
• Some of the solutions developed do not always match with the needs of cities, especially in the Mediterranean, where urban sprawl and insufficient public services appear in most urban areas. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance dialogue between business, experts and policy-makers, in order to develop smartly the smart city model in the Mediterranean.
• Citizens need to be put at the core of this model with better provision of public services in cooperation with companies and the business sector.

MedCities invited representatices from the Municipalities of Dubrovnik and Sousse in order to share their experience and future projects to implement smart solutions at their municipal public policies.