On 15 July, the ILO held an online launching event for the EU-funded regional Youth NEET programme in the Southern Mediterranean region, a ground-breaking initiative designed to support young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET).
The MED-GEM network, which aims to synchronise the energy strategies of Mediterranean countries, promoting green hydrogen as a cornerstone for decarbonisation, celebrates one year of shared expertise and work. A special video was released on this occasion.
A call for participants in a new fellowship programme has been launched by Free Press Unlimited (FPU). In the framework of the EU's support to independent media in the Southern Neighbourhood region, the programme will focus on the impact of war and conflict on media and journalists, a crucial topic in the region.
The Extended Migrant Health Centre in the Turkish city of Mersin is the place that changed Yüsra Ammuri’s life. Eight years ago, she came from Syria with her husband and their children. At the health centre, they detected a tumor during her mammogram. With the help of the doctors and social workers, Yüsra was able to receive her first hospital appointment and start her treatment. The health centre, built within the scope of the SIHHAT Project, is funded by European Union and supported by the Turkish Ministry of Health. In Türkiye, there are around 200 migrant health centres in 32 cities, which have already served 6.5 million people.
Imagine your life is turned upside down twice in the last 10 years. The Syrian refugees left everything behind because of the civil war in Syria and fled to Türkiye to find safe and better future. The life they built was again buried under rubble in the February 2023 earthquakes, where more than 55,000 people died. The only thing they think about now is to see their children receive a good education, which will help them to have a better life than their parents. Since 2016 the EU has been providing financial support for the most vulnerable refugee children in Türkiye to access formal and non-formal education programmes. More than 160,000 children benefit from the Support for School Enrolment (SSE) programme. It is carried out in partnership with UNICEF, the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), and the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (ASAM).
Muna lost one of her legs at the age of three. She was walking the streets of her hometown Hama in Syria when a car hit her. Her leg had to be amputated below the knee. Muna received treatment and a prosthesis that allowed her to walk again, but then the war in Syria started. For two years, she had to continue using the same device, even though she had long outgrown it. One day, on the way to school, her prosthesis broke. After this, her family came to Reyhanlı, Türkiye, where she got a new prosthetic leg. Now, at 23-years-old, Muna works as a physiotherapist at the very EU-funded centre where she received her artificial limb.
.
The EU Crime Fighting Week took place on 10-14 June 2024 in Brussels, bringing together EU institutions, international partners and EU-funded projects. Over 250 participants from around the world gathered to take stock of the ever-evolving transregional organised crime threat, providing a unique opportunity for collaboration between different actors and initiatives at regional, trans-regional and global levels.
Attracting impactful and sustainable investment is crucial for the economies of Southern Neighbourhood countries. The regional event convened in the framework of the EU-OECD regional programme focusing on investment gathered stakeholders interested in this approach.
As part of its last series of Joint Policy Studies, the regional project EuroMeSCo: Connecting the Dots organised a presentation of the findings on the implementation of the CBAM in Southern Neighbourhood countries and how the EU can better accompany them in this transitional phase.
As SwitchMed will soon pass the torch to the Green Forward initiative, the partners of the project met in Vienna for the last steering committee, after 10 years of collaboration.
With the collaboration of DG GROW, the regional project European Clusters Forward brought together 40 clusters in the framework of the collaborative platform of the TechDays in Frankfurt.
.
On 11 June, the MED-GEM (Mediterranean Green Electrons and Molecules) Network organised its second MED-GEM Industry Advisory Board meeting, involving some 50 clean energy industry stakeholders and policy makers from Southern Neighbourhood countries (all present except Algeria and Libya but including Mauritania), hosted by Hydrogen Europe in Brussels. The meeting allowed for discussions among European and Southern Neighbourhood stakeholders on recent developments in the renewable energy and renewable hydrogen sector and areas of mutual interest and possible trade of Green Electrons and Green Molecules.
On 10 June, the MED-GEM (Mediterranean Green Electrons and Molecules) Network with DG NEAR organised a high-level training session on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in Brussels. DG NEAR and the MED-GEM Network introduced the hybrid event that was attended by national focal points and country correspondents from the MED-GEM Network, but also key representatives from renewable energy industry representatives, all together more than 60 participants online from both shores of the Mediterranean.
120 public officials and private sector, institutional, and civil society representatives as well as journalists convened for a two-day Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and Office of the Commissioner for Gender Equality of Cyprus event to assess the economic empowerment of women, gender-just responses to the climate crisis, violence against women and girls, and gender inequality in the media across the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The Open Budget Survey is back, featuring results for Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia, and including a pilot in Libya.
In Lisbon, on 5-6 June, participants from the whole Mediterranean region gathered on the occasion of the UfM Regional Platform on Water, hosted by the Portuguese Ministry of Environment.
In the framework of the Young Researchers Lab of the project EuroMeSCo: Connecting the Dots, a series of policy briefs written by young researchers on the topics of climate change and energy has been published.
More than three years after the launch of the New Agenda for the Mediterranean, the IEMed, in the framework of the project EuroMeSCo: Connecting the Dots, delivered a survey of experts in the Euro-Mediterranean region to contribute to the reflections related to the future of the ENP. Results are out!
