The project’s partners and donors met for a coordination meeting ahead of the launch of the NEWMED2030 project,  next October.  

The main objectives of the meeting , held on September 16th, were to set a common ground ahead of the project’s start. Particularly, it aimed to detail relevant aspects for the successful implementation of the first phase, including governance and financial agreements, and the identification of priorities and next steps.  

The event took place in a hybrid format in Barcelona, bringing together professionals from MedCities, UN Habitat City Resilience Global Programme (CRGP) and UN Habitat Lebanon as implementing partners, and from the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), as funders.  

The meeting was attended by Gerard Graells del Bas, Director of the ACCD; Santiago Morán Medina, Coordinator of the Masar Al’an Programme in AECID; and Aleix Villatoro i Oliver, Secretary General of MedCities. Marta Borrat Puig, ACCD representative in Morocco, and Habiba El Mouali Benomar, Delegate of the Government of Catalonia in North Africa, also joined online. 

The gathering provided the opportunity to agree on governance and coordination arrangements, set a clear roadmap for the inception phase, and list the responsibilities and follow-up milestones for the project. 

In the coming weeks, the partners will officially begin implementing the project’s first phase. Among other activities, the municipalities will be identified and selected, and the relevant stakeholders will be mobilised.  

Furthermore, the partnership will hold an open side event during the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, the 4^th of November. The session will officially launch the NEWMED2030 project and explore practical approaches to urban resilience, participatory planning and inclusive local development, addressing the question of how local resilience practices can contribute to regional learning in the Mediterranean.    

About NewMed 2030 project

NEWMED2030 is a project financed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) that brings together MedCities, UN Habitat Lebanon and UN Habitat City Resilience Global Programme (CRGP) as implementing partners.   

The project will work with four municipalities in Lebanon and four municipalities in Morocco to increase their participative urban governance, local resilience and inclusive local development, focusing on women and young people.  

The four-year long project will officially start in October 2026. During its first phase, the project will aim at developing evidence-based strategic resilience plans for each municipality through enhanced participatory governance and improved local capacities. The City Resilience Profiling Tool (CRPT) will be one of the methodologies used for the diagnosis of the cities’ hazards and vulnerabilities, and to assess potential future actions. Local authorities, civil society and communities will be actively involved in the process.