MEMBERS Tetouan and Dannieh: a new example of decentralised cooperation among MedCities' members In an official reception in honour of the President of the Dannieh Municipalities Union (Lebanon), Mr. Mohamed Saadieh, the Mayor of Tetouan, Dr. Mohamed Idaomar, hosted a working meeting in December 2017, where the two local governments signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at improving the cooperation and exchange of experiences in various areas related to local management, in both Tetouan and Dannieh Municipalities. Through the MedCities association, strong bonds were forged between them, with a common vision of the challenges faced in order to develop both regions productively, especially in providing opportunities for young people, job creation, fostering tourism and promoting commerce. | | EDITORIAL Urban Mobility challenges and Cooperation opportunities in the Mediterranean Urban Mobility continues being a great challenge in the Mediterranean region as was highlighted in the Urban Mobility Forum (UMF-II) in Egypt - Efficient Urban Transport for Sustainable Cities -, held in Cairo in the autumn of 2017. Multiple actors illustrated a huge variety of specific urban mobility weaknesses, especially in the MENA region. With the aim of corroborating some of the final messages announced within the framework of the UMF-II, MedCities would like to state that decentralised collaborating actors have or must look for the opportunity to support the development of Local Mobility Strategies, including immediate soft solutions to mitigate current urban threats by identifing cities' specific challengies. Nevertheless, there are not any current territorial cooperation programmes that incorporate urban mobility as a priority axis for project development and exchange practices between both shores of the Mediterranean. For instance, the Interreg MED programme does not tend to work with Southern Med territories and the ENI CBC MED Programme doesn't include urban mobility as a priority line of action. Moreover, MedCities stresses the need to introduce a gender approach to fight inequality within Mobility Urban Plans and Strategies around the Mediterranean. In that respect, the Tunis Gender Mobility Awareness Campaign entitled "#Mayerkebch" can be taken as good practice. A study by the 'Centre de Recherches, d' Etudes, de Documentation et d' Information sur la Femme (CREDIF)' revealed that 53.5% of the 3,000 women surveyed had been victims of violence in public spaces, especially public transport. This is a topic that will attract more attention from different decision makers and MedCities will insist that it must be included in the agenda of the developing challenges in the region. | |