Objective

D4N aims to contribute to the transition to a climate-neutral and resilient society, by protecting, restoring and valorising the natural environment and heritage of the Mediterranean region.

This will be applied by promoting improved governance and coordination between Mediterranean actors to harmonize nature conservation policies and mainstream them into sectoral policies.

Description

The Mediterranean region is characterised by an exceptional diversity of natural ecosystems and rich biodiversity. At the same time, its strategic geographical position has allowed the region to become a centre of intense socioeconomic development. However, the region’s natural heritage is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the adverse social and environmental effects of human activity and global climate change. 

The Natural Heritage Mission of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme is focusing its efforts on addressing this exact challenge: protecting, restoring and valorizing the natural resources. The two governance projects of the Mission, the Community4Nature (C4N) and the Dialogue4Nature (D4N), work in close cooperation and in complementarity aiming to build on available knowledge and results produced at the European level, transfer them to other contexts and mainstream them into effective policies. 

D4N project will boost relations between key actors of the Mediterranean region, building upon existing networks and identify key opportunities to enhance collaboration for policy harmonization and innovative governance practices.

D4N will build on previous experiences and lessons learned from the Interreg Med Horizontal projects (HPs) PANACeA and the Mediterranean Biodiversity Community, in which MedCities as also engaged, but also from other projects and initiatives relevant to foster the Mediterranean dialogues.

The project will consider three main phases in its implementation:

1.Identify baseline conditions and barriers to the uptake of nature policies;

2.Produce new guidance to mainstream nature policies into sectors;

3.Establish mechanisms to enhance policy coordination for nature at Med level.

MedCities leads the REUSE activities to enable conditions for the exploitation and re-use of governance knowledge, experience and results from thematic projects by multilevel stakeholders throughout the Mediterranean region.

The packages TRANSFER and COORDINATION will promote transference and coordinate actions through a newly created transnational Med Resilience Network (MRN).

Beneficiary

The project targets a very wide array of multilevel and multisector stakeholders, being local public authorities one of the key target. They will benefit from tailored mapping exercises, capacity building activities, institutional dialogues and events of working groups. The Forum of Adriatic and Ionian Cities (FAIC) is “associated partner” to the project as well as MedCities members Marseille, Dubrovnik, Izmir and Sfax. 

Main SDGs addressed

D4N contributes to the following SDGs:

GOAL 11 Sustainable cities and communities

GOAL 13 Climate action

GOAL 14 Life below water

GOAL 15 Life on land

GOAL 17 Partnerships to achieve the goal