From 15th to 17th of December 2014, the IEMed (European Institute of the Mediterranean) brought together a group of high level experts to debate about the urban policies agenda of the Mediterranean, in the framework of the MED Confederation. 

Specifically, the meeting had two specific targets:

• Highlighting the contribution of public-private partnerships such as urban planning tool;
• Provide policy in the form of contributions note to the next ministerial meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) in 2015 on urban policy.

This topics were debated during four sessions:

• Session 1: identification of major urban challenges in the Mediterranean
• Session 2: financing urban development, infrastructure and amenities: the importance of PPPs to ensure financial sustainability
• Session 3: innovation and urban development in the Mediterranean
• Session 4: development and social integration policies: the key to urban inclusion and sustainable growth

Joan Parpal, the Secretary General of MedCities, participated the first day in the session of “Main urban challenges in the Mediterranean”, in order to share the experience of MedCities in the field of urban development and the processes that the cities of the network have experienced.

During the last session named “Social integration, planning and policies: key to urban inclusiveness and sustainable growth”, Mohamed Idaomar, president of MedCities and mayor of Tetuan, shared  the experience of Tetuan. Idaomar stressed the need of the political commitment to work on this topics and the need of more resources for the succes of local adminsitration.

In the same session, Rubina Abu Zeinab, executive director of the Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development, explained all the process that the city of Saida experienced during its City Development Strategy and the challenges that Municipality and other stakeholders have to face.

The debates and the analysis done during the seminar, will be included in a IEMED document.