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 | Newsletter
# 43 - May 2018 | |
 | HIGHLIGHT Reinforcing cooperation ties with Izmir and Antalya On May 8th and 9th, MedCities General Secretariat visited Izmir and Antalya, the Turkish members of the association, in order to strengthen relationship with their political teams and technical departments. A meeting was held with Izmir Deputy Mayor Mr Sırrı Aydoğan, as well as different departments within Izmir Metropolitan Municipality such as strategic planning, urban agriculture, EU Programs and international relations. The MedCities delegation was received in Antalya by Mayor Menderes Türel, who set sustainable tourism and coastal management as top priorities of the city within the network. | |
 RESOURCES Reuse in the Mediterranean and its impact on territories The preparatory Mediterranean process, for the 8th World Water Forum, managed by the Mediterranean Water Institute and the Union for the Mediterranean, has been a unique opportunity to mobilise all the regional stakeholders. Appointed as coordinators of the working group on the "urban" topic, IPEMED and Medcities wished to highlight the know-how of cities and operators in terms of reuse of treated waste water (REUSE). |  RESOURCES URBIS - Urban Investment Advisory Platform URBIS is a new dedicated urban investment advisory platform within the European Investment Advisory Hub (EIAH). URBIS is set up to provide advisory support to EU urban authorities to facilitate, accelerate and unlock urban investment projects, programmes and platforms. URBIS has been developed in support of the EU Urban Agenda by addressing both city wide investment planning and financing needs for projects. | | |
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 PARTNERS GiZ CoMun presents its results after ten years of implementation in the Maghreb Last 25th and 26th April GiZ, strategic partner of MedCities and member of Centre of Mediterranean Integration Urban Hub, organised a Regional Forum on "City Networks as Catalysts for Urban Development" as the final event of CoMun program. The forum was an opportunity for the governmental and civil society actors of the program to take stock of what has been accomplished throughout the last eight years of the CoMun program, implemented in the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). Medcities participated in the debates, which reflected the constraints facing the development of urban management and the challenges in ensuring long-term ownership by municipalities. | | | EDITORIAL Mediterranean metropolises The transformation of cities into larger metropolises is a growing trend in the Mediterranean region. This brings together multiple challenges, related to housing, sustainable transport, environmental questions as well as social cohesion and equitable economic growth for all. Moreover, governance challenges arise, since intermunicipal bodies are rare in the region. Despite not being a particularity of the Mediterranean, the rise of metropolises are putting at stake how cities are managed and planned in an instable regional context. Taking stock of the multiple mobility of goods and human beings across the region the arbitrary meaning of cultural division regarding cities, metropolises of the Mediterranean must be understood as a complex interaction between rapidly changing societies, new power relations and urban planning. All those questions were addressed recently in the Post-Habitat III Congress that took place in Barcelona last 22nd and 23rd May, organized by the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona in the framework of the New Urban Agenda. Most of the conclusions, already available, were addressed from a global perspective, although they apply to the reality of Mediterranean cities and metropolises. Metropolisation is a growing phenomenon. It is important that cities start from now to take it as given so they can plan and adapt their growth to this reality. From a governance perspective, more collaboration and cooperation between neighboring cities will be necessary to address this challenge. The example of the Congress recently celebrated in Barcelona is a hint of how knowledge exchanges can help to overcome the challenges that metropolisation will bring with. | | |
|  The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery (by Anaïs Nin) 
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| acting as General Secretariat  |
