The Med4Waste project arrived at an end! The partners organized the final event from the 24th to the 26th of October in Sardinia, Italy, a 3-day long event co-organized with the WES-MED project. The event brought together more than 200 policy-makers, ministry officials, local authorities, the private sector, NGOs, researchers from more than 23 countries, and stakeholders, to strengthen capacities and skills for informed decision-making related to decentralized waste management in the region.

The island of Sardinia was chosen as a host region that has a lot to show for itself in terms of its progress on this topic in the last years. The event combined working sessions and study visits, including the presentation of the Med4Waste key findings, innovative practices and models applicable in various municipalities, and it helped strengthen the regional dialogue and cooperation on sustainable waste management. The project ends ofically on 30^th of November, right after the Day of the Mediterranean, when we celebrate our shared identity, common heritage, and love for the Mediterranean. Caring about this means improving our waste management systems!

Urban waste management is one of the most important and urgent challenges facing the Mediterranean region. Several factors aggravate the situation, such as population growth, increasing tourism, or the absence of adequate waste management policies. In the southern and eastern Mediterranean, the challenges in this field are even more acute, in many cases due to high population pressures or the low availability of waste management infrastructures.

The Med4Waste project, co-financed with European funds from the ENI CBC Med programme, has been working to facilitate new governance models for integrated and efficient urban waste management policies to help solve these issues in the Mediterranean Region.

Med4Waste is a capitalisation project, meaning that it promotes the utilisation and widest dissemination of successful practices and results of previously financed projects. The process of capitalisation has three main steps: identifying successful practices from other projects, replicating and reusing those practices, and mainstreaming said practices into public policies.

One of the relevant resources is the Med4Waste Waste Management Catalogue aimed at providing waste management experts and decision-makers in the Mediterranean region with valuable insights into the accomplishments and promising outputs of its capitalised projects. This catalogue, with more than 22 innovative solutions divided into 6 categories, serves as exemplary model for replication. This catalogue offers a comprehensive overview of the implemented activities, success stories, and invaluable lessons learned. Moreover, it analyses the key enabling factors that ensure the seamless transferability of the identified outputs. Two outputs have been developed to reach the second goal: the Med4ZeroWaste & Circular Economy Course and the Mentoring Scheme.

The Mentoring Scheme, led by MedCities, was designed to create and/or improve the integrated municipal waste management plans (IWMP) of 6 selected cities from the southern Mediterranean region (Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia), to help them implement tailor-made supporting actions to implement those plans; and promote the replication of successful actions being implemented in other projects from the ENI CBC Med community through a twinning and exchange program. The six cities carried out supporting actions for their IWMP such as studies on the pricing system, training for municipal staff, awareness campaigns, and coaching for school teachers.

MedCities presented the mentoring scheme program and explained the process and main results.

You can watch the video about the mentoring here.

Reaching policy makers at the municipal, regional, and Mediterranean levels to help reach the goals of the with the support of the 2030 GreenerMed Agenda with the support of the Union for the Mediterranean

To disseminate all this information, more than 30 different awareness-raising campaigns have been carried out. One of the more impactful ones is the development of a video game to increase awareness and knowledge about waste management amongst young people in the Mediterranean region. The videogame, named Eco-Builder, incorporates knowledge from the successful practices in its design, and there are PC, Android, and iOS versions available.

Link for more information on the project: Med4Waste | ENI CBC Med

More about the final event here