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Next week will be the first edition of the Africa – Europe week, which will end-up with the 6th European Union–African Union Summit (17-18 February 2022). The Africa-Europe week aims to strengthen the links that connect people from both our continent and will include a wide range of important events: the 7th EU-Africa Business (EABF 22), the Civil Society and Local Authorities Forum, the Culture Track and a series of side Events. Most of those events will be hybrid and therefore allow people from all ours partners countries to attend. Registration is open for all those events.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a digital shift for investment promotion agencies (IPAs), which had to quickly adapt to best support firms and promote investment. MENA IPAs have increased their use of digital tools to support investors throughout the investment process – from targeting firms to supporting market entry and expansion. Based on a survey of IPAs in the region, the latest policy brief developed under the EU-OECD programme on support to investment in the Southern Neighbourhood finds that MENA IPAs use digital tools for more activities than OECD area IPAs. As MENA IPAs plan to continue expanding digital services, many will have to navigate changing organisational culture and evaluate where digital tools can be most effective.

National workshop on the preparation of criminal justice statistics on cybercrime and e-evidence in Lebanon.

Third Working Group Meeting on the mainstreaming of judicial training material on cybercrime and electronic evidence in Jordan.

DG NEAR B2 project El-Hiwar II organised from 31 January to 3 February 2022 an online Institutional Training Workshop on Regional Integration.

The EuroMed Justice Programme (EMJ) has organised a workshop between Belgian and Lebanese authorities on international exchange of information for the detection and recovery of criminal assets. The activity was held in Brussels on 1-3 February using the new Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) tool.

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On 27 January, EU Member States, IFIs, EU Delegations, Line DGs, the UfMS and DG NEAR came together to discuss the next steps in the design of the regional Team Europe Initiative on “Jobs through trade and investment”. The TEI tackles decent employment in the Southern Neighbourhood, a region with challenges both on demand and supply side of labour. It covers 3 thematic pillars: (i) sustainable trade and investment; (ii) vocational training & skills; (iii) inclusive entrepreneurship. The meeting allowed to firstly present the mapping of ongoing interventions– the cumulative budget amounts to EUR 4 billion with 29 regional programmes and 79 bilateral programmes. Secondly, a draft Joint Intervention Logic was presented. It will allow the development of joint objectives and indicators, that will facilitate monitoring and evaluation. Lastly, emphasis was placed on strategic communications in order to ensure that target audiences in the region understand the benefit of the TEI’s collaborative model. A launch event will be planned for the months to come. Stay tuned!

On October 27, 2021, during the Cairo Water Week 2021, WES had the opportunity to disseminate the early lessons learned in the field of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) by its DEMO projects in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia. WES and its DEMO project partners, presented innovative technologies, processes and methods used to addressing different aspects of water management challenges in both urban and rural areas.

EU Neighbours South Projects

“With the objective to foster a common Mediterranean identity and increase the visibility and ownership of regional cooperation”, the 28th of November was declared as the Day of the Mediterranean during the 5th UfM Regional Forum in November 2020. Coinciding with the date of the Barcelona Declaration, the Day of the Mediterranean was conceived “provide the opportunity to hold cultural events across the region with a view to strengthening ties, promoting intercultural exchanges and dialogue and embracing the diversity of the region.”

The review of the 2021 work carried out by WES allowed all Partner Countries, institutional and other stakeholders to assess a number of characteristics of this EU funded Project. Its relevance and good response to the demands of the PCs, the quality of its deliverables and, in many cases, its innovative approaches, have been repeatedly recognised. What is becoming now, under the COVID-19 pandemic, even more evident, is its contribution to enhancing the feeling of “belonging” and ownership through cooperation and synergies among all key Mediterranean players, including the UfM, the Barcelona Convention/UNEP-MAP/MCSD, and Initiatives such as the Cairo Water Week, etc., and a large number of organisations involved in the design and implementation of projects such as the WES DEMOs. This synergy-catalyst character of WES is the result of close working relationships and mutual confidence with all parties involved and coherent approaches facilitating and assisting, discretely, in various ways all worthy initiatives throughout a series of successful projects/previous phases: Horizon 2020 CB/MEP; SWIM SM; SWIM-H2020 SM leading to WES. The recently approved WES Workplan for 2022 allows for the continuation of this function and for further expanding the synergies and conditions for the constructive atmosphere and the much-needed cooperation in our region.

Aiming to strongly support the projects leaders in developing their activities and improving their content, this session was based on lessons learned from previous sessions, in order to address specific issues and concerns

Debriefing on the recent COP climate summit and assessing to which extent further bi-regional cooperation could be foreseen was the first goal of the policy dialogue.

Two technical meetings took place on November 8 and 17, respectively, with Jordanian and Moroccan partners to discuss potential pilot support actions to be implemented by the Programme.

On 4 November the MED MSMEs Programme organized a hybrid roundtable in Beirut to introduce focus Digital Transformation (DT) and the best ways to develop SMEs exports.

On November 24, 2021, EuroMeSCo held an off the Record Policy Talk devoted to the presentation of the findings and recommendations of the Policy Report on Talent Partnerships and future skills needs - Fostering collaboration on human capital development in the Mediterranean authored by Mattia di Salvo (Researcher, Centre for European Policy Studies – CEPS).

On the 25th and 26th October, nearly 50 young researchers from all along the Mediterranean successfully gathered in Barcelona in order to present their research work, exchange knowledge with other experts and policymakers, as well as to benefit from capacity building trainings.