January 2026 marked an important step forward for the NATURIncMed project with the successful organisation of an online kick-off meeting with the municipality of Tetouan. The meeting set the foundation for a new collaboration within the project. The session brought together key political and technical stakeholders from the Commune de Tetouan, including the Second Deputy Mayor, Monsieur Nassar Fakih Lanjiri, and the project’s technical focal point, Monsieur Kasmi Hicham, Head of the Major Projects Division and Delegated Management Monitoring. The discussion was further enriched by the participation of the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation), represented by Vicente Ortega Cámara, Director of the Spanish Cooperation Office in Morocco, alongside his technical team.

Beyond its formal role as a launch meeting, the KoM served as a strategic dialogue platform. The participants explored how NATURIncMed’s objectives could connect with Tetouan’s municipal priorities and ongoing cooperation initiatives.

At the heart of the exchange was a shared commitment to advancing nature-based solutions (NbS) as a driver of sustainable urban transformation. NATURIncMed supports Mediterranean cities in:

• Enhancing resilience to climate and environmental pressures

• Improving public space and urban liveability with a social inclusion perspective

• Integrating green infrastructure into planning processes

• Strengthening technical and institutional capacities

This kick-off meeting (KoM) also comes during the second phase of NATURIncMed, already underway in El Mina, Madaba, and Gabès, in which Tetouan has been incorporated as a fourth pilot city.

This expansion responds to emerging needs within the Masar Al’An programme, under which NATURIncMed is implemented and financed by AECID. The addition reinforces the project’s regional dimension and deepens its impact across diverse Mediterranean contexts. With Tetouan now actively engaged, the upcoming activities will focus on local participatory diagnosis training and implementation and continued capacity-building and knowledge exchange among partner cities.

As NATURIncMed progresses, each new collaboration strengthens a growing network of municipalities committed to embedding nature at the centre of urban resilience and sustainability strategies.