The EuroMed Research Network on Migration, coordinated by the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration of the Pompeu Fabra University (GRITIM-UPF) organised, together with the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) and the Barcelona City Council, the symposium entitled ‘Migration governance capacities for Mediterranean cities: A strategic urban agenda for the next decade’.

MedCities was invited to participate and it was a great experience as the Secretary-General could underline that the migratory aspect is now included as a key topic to be addressed in some of our projects such as ASIMATunis strategic plan, and included in some of the actions of projects that look at the greening the cities concept with a migration perspective, like Irbid. Also, Canals could explain the experience of the Tanger Accueil project.

The aim of this symposium, which took place on 23 October, throughout the day was to facilitate dialogue between key actors and researchers to develop a strategic urban agenda for migration for the next decade. The intention is to improve the capacities and role of Mediterranean cities in terms of migration governance.

The symposium was organised through different thematic round tables, which addressed a wide range of key issues and challenges of urban governance of migration, such as innovation in public policies and urban resilience as a way to overcome the limitations faced by city councils; the key role of certain organisations that support cities; the potential of city networks and city diplomacy as policy strategies to enhance leadership in this area; and the challenges and opportunities linked to the generation and interpretation of data at local level to ensure evidence-based policies.

The event was attended by senior representatives from the municipalities of Barcelona, Marseille, Tangier, Tirana, Gaziantep,all of them MedCities members, Istanbul, and Athens in an environment that aims to promote municipal cooperation and peer-to-peer dialogue and learning. On the other hand, representatives of leading international organisations and non-state actors from all shores of the Mediterranean, such as UN-Habitat, the Mixed Migration Center (MMC), Africapolis-OECD, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), were also present, Ciutats i Governs Locals Units (CGLU), la Creu Roja i la Mitja Lluna Roja, la Fondation Orient-Occident, the Mayors’ Mechanism, Medcities, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the Smart Cities Network (RECI).