Early on the second Annual Forum of the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” brought together Brussels Mission supporters, related projects’ partners and other key stakeholders. MedCities was present as BlueMissionMed partner. The forum looked back at the Mission’s progress and major achievements in mobilising the community towards the goal of protecting our waters. The forum further marked the moment to prepare the ground for the next phase of the mission, moving from demonstration to deployment.

The Forum was preceded by a matchmaking event among Charter action partners as an opportunity to network with EU Mission projects, philanthropists and Charter signatories. This gave the occasion to meet the Chairman of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Energy Agency (IZENERJI) to share how Izmir is already engaged in 3 out of the 5 EU Missions, namely Adaptation to Climate Change, Restore our Ocean and Waters and Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities.

Barcelona, Izmir and Genoa are among our member cities, which already endorsed the Mission Charter pledging an action in support of the Mission objectives. Ancona, Mersin and Antalya are currently undergoing this process. Some of them will join us in the UN Oceans Decade Conference in Barcelona on 10 to 12 April to engage on the Flagship Mediterranean on site satellite event “Turn ideas into action. The Mediterranean Lighthouse as a pilot to upscale the challenges of the Decade from local to global”. The event – organised by MedCities together with the European Comission and BlueMissionMed and co-hosted by the Municipality of Barcelona, the IEO-CSIC and Union for Mediterranean- will provide a platform for multi-stakeholders from cities and local communities engaged in the Ocean Decade to showcase impactful solution-oriented initiatives in preventing and eliminating pollution in the ocean and waters that are accessible, reliable, scalable, and transferable from the local to the global scale.