There is no pathway to peace. Peace is the way. (M.K. Gandhi)
Abstract
The Mediterranean is a melting pot of civilizations, a testimony of our origins and an inspiration for the future. The south of the Mediterranean needs tourism but also has the utmost need for peace, stability, and cooperation in order to work it out between both shores.
Tourism is no longer just an economic sector, as people are recently experiencing a change and self consciousness towards the conversion of natural and cultural heritage and Sustainable Tourism may drive the way to a new awareness of visitors and hosting local communities.
The United Nations recognizes tourism’s contribution to people and to the planet through peace and prosperity. Transforming the Mediterranean in an area of peace, cooperation investing and promoting sustainable tourism may be the turning point for future generations. Enhance the Mediterranean into a common area for all its inhabitants and visitors with the aim of increasing its potential for sustainable growth and prioritize the achievements to the Sustainable Development Goals. Capitalizing on tourism’s potential to advance economic growth, social inclusiveness, women, and youth employment as well as poverty and inequality reduction is the contribution that tourism may offer, by raising awareness on environmental safeguard and biodiversity preservation and boost on climate change relief.
The project aims to strengthen the links among the countries coasting the Mediterranean Sea and encourage the development of a network capable of supporting a rational conversion targeting sustainable enhancement.
The Med Blu Marina-Network project is potentially a new concept to develop marinas cooperation adopting the values and essential features of sustainable tourism, as an incentive to local economic development. A sustainable marina- network as an incentive to local development by putting into effect the goals recommended by the United Nations and promote a responsible “Peace” oriented tourism as a driver of economic growth tracing the path for future generations.
Index
Introduction .... ... 5
CHAPTER 1. THE MEDITERRANEAN A MELTING POT OF CIVILIZATION - GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE COUNTRIES FACING THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA ... ... 16
1.1 The perception of the European Union in the Mediterranean countries ... 16
1.2 Mediterranean in the age of globalization ... 17
1.3 The Italian strategy in the Mediterranean - guidelines to stabilize the crisis and build a positive agenda for the region ... 22
1.4 Migration in a globalized world ... 25
CHAPTER 2. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AS A SOCIAL AGENT TO TRANSFORM THE MEDITERRANEAN IN AN AREA OF PEACE ... 29
2.1 Peace – the pillar of human rights ... 29
2.2 Tourism – a suitable tool ... 31
2.3 Relationship between tourism and peace ... 31
2.4 Tourism as a Contribution to the Culture of Peace and Global citizenship ... 34
2.5 Sustainable tourism and Peace ... 37
2.6 Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD) ... 40
2.7 Tourism in the 2030 AGENDA – UNWTO – Key Points ... 48
CHAPTER 3. CAPITALIZING ON TOURISM’S POTENTIAL TO ADVANCE SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH ... 55
3.1 Mediterranean economic context ... 55
3.2 International Tourism economic trend in a Global Economy ... 57
3.3 Tourism growth in the Mediterranean ... 59
3.4 Mediterranean Tourism - Key challenges ... 68
3.5 Main Tourism organizations in the Mediterranean ... 74
3.6 Women and youth empowerment - promoting inclusiveness and gender equality ... 77
3.7 How to improve the Mediterranean environment for Sustainable Tourism ... 80
CHAPTER 4. THE MEDITERRANEAN NAUTICAL TOURISM AS A COMMON GOOD ... ... 83
4.1 Mediterranean Sea - Governance and policy makers ... 83
4.2 The Mediterranean - Blue economy ... 85
4.4 Nautical tourism ... 92
4.5 Nautical tourism and Marinas in the Mediterranean ... 98
CHAPTER 5. THE MED BLU SUSTAINABLE MARINA-NETWORK PROJECT 106 5.1 Mediterranean Sustainable Yacht Tourism Outlook ... 106
5.2 Towards Sustainable Marinas in the Mediterranean... 111
5.3 Projecting a New Concept ... 112
5.4 Focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ... 115
5.5 A Marina Environmentally Friendly Framework ... 117
5.6 Med Blu Marina-Network - a Sustainable Marina-Network ... 122
5.7 The Management Standards of the Med Blu Marina-Network ... 125
5.8 The Med Blu Marina-Network a Business Plan Model ... 129
Conclusion …. ... 132
Bibliography…. ... 134
Introduction
1. General geographic aspects of the Mediterranean basin
The region of the Mediterranean Sea is the largest of the European semi-enclosed seas, surrounded by 22 countries with a coastline of 46 000 km crossing three continents of which Africa, Asia, and Europe with more than 480 million inhabitants. Approximately one third of the population is concentrated along its coastal regions and is one of the world's busiest shipping routes with about one-third of the world's total merchant shipping crossing the sea each year.1
The Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land, in fact on the north we find South Europe and Anatolia on the south North Africa and on the east the Levant. Water has always been an essential element of the population living in the area and an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times, facilitating trade and cultural exchange between the population of the region.
The Mediterranean basin is an essentially closed sea covering an area of 3,000,000 square km. Twenty one countries share its coastline, of which the European countries of Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia Spain, France, Monaco, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel ,Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.2
Mediterranean Sea, which in the ancient times was considered the spring of western civilization, is an intercontinental sea that stretches from the Atlantic
1 Mediterranean Sea region briefing - The European environment - state and outlook 2015
www.eea.europa.eu/soer-2015/countries/mediterranean
Ocean on the west to Asia on the east and separates Europe from Africa. This ancient “sea between the lands” occupies a deep, stretched out and almost locked among the lands with an irregular depression lying between latitudes 30° and 46° North and longitudes 5°50′ West and 36° east. Its west-east extent from the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco to the shores of the Gulf of Iskenderun on the southwestern coast of Turkey – is around 4,000 km and its average north-south extent, between Croatia’s north-southernmost shores and Libya, is about 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, is about a whole area of 2,510,000 square km.
The western extremity of the Mediterranean Sea connects with the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow and shallow channel of the Strait of Gibraltar, which is roughly 13 km wide at its narrowest point and the ridge depth separating the Atlantic from the Alborán Sea is around 320 mt. To the northeast the Mediterranean is connected with the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Bosporus and to the southeast it is connected with the Red Sea by the Suez Canal.
A submarine ridge between the island of Sicily and the African coast is about 365 metres and divides the Mediterranean Sea into the western and eastern part. The western part consequently is subdivided into three basins: the Alborán Basin, east of Gibraltar, between the coasts of Spain and Morocco, the Algerian Basin, east of the Alborán Basin, west of Sardinia and Corsica, extending from the coast of Algeria to the coast of France which constitute the western basin. The Tyrrhenian Basin of the Mediterranean basin lies between Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
The eastern part of the Mediterranean is divided into two major basins comprising the Ionian Basin, known as the Ionian Sea, which lies to the south of Italy, Albania, and Greece. A submarine ridge between the western end of Crete and Cyrenaica of Lybia separates the Ionian Basin from the Levantine Basin to the south of Anatolia in Turkey and the island of Crete separates the Levantine Basin from the Aegean Sea including numerous islands of the Grecian archipelago and the sea north of Crete. The Adriatic Sea, northwest of the main body of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, is bounded by Italy to the west and north and by Slovenia, Croatia Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania to the east.3
Mediterranean cultural landscapes are shaped by human activity, above all by architecture and urbanization and the areas of traditional settlements which were influenced mainly by climate and bordered large parts of the Mediterranean coast. Currently, the settlement pattern is shifting from contiguous settlements spread out around major towns, resulting in landscape degradation. There is a multitude of different landscapes and land configurations in the Mediterranean. 4
2. Institutional, political, social, and economic aspects, drivers, and trends
The unique environmental conditions of the Mediterranean bordered by three continents, absolutely favoured the birth of a wide diversity of human communities, which share a rich history dating back to millennia. The richness of history is
3 Moustafa Salah, Baruch Boxer–Encycolopedia Britannica www.britannica.com/place/Mediterranean-Sea 4 UNEP/MAP: State of the Mediterranean Marine and Coastal Environment, UNEP/MAP – Barcelona
testified by more than 130 cultural and natural sites that have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Font: Population density by administrative region and main cities in the Mediterranean catchment area (Source: EUROSTAT, 2018; National statistics departments, 2011-2018, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision)
In 2017 the population of the Mediterranean countries, was about 510 million inhabitants, which represents 6.8 % of the world population, nearly one third lives in the coastal area and more than 70 % in cities. The region’s demographic context changes considerably between the northern and southern shores. Northern Mediterranean countries are characterized by a low fertility rate, an elder and less active population. While the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries are in a demographic change phase with a higher younger and consequently more active population.
The Mediterranean countries have always been a migration hotspot, within Mediterranean countries and outside Mediterranean countries involving about 7.5 million people. While migration from countries outside the Mediterranean countries
and the European Union Mediterranean area involves about 5.7 million. Mediterranean countries host a very high number of refugees in particular coming from Lebanon, Malta, and Turkey.5
The Mediterranean waterway has acted as both a bridge and a barrier between continents for many years. Empires seeking power in the Mediterranean region have all made use of it, as a communication and transportation route, facilitating access to different continents and to obtain more security and power against their enemies. Most of the political landscape of the Mediterranean was shaped by European influence and intervention. Historically the Mediterranean has also been assumed as a bridge allowing the European power into Africa and West Asia. During the Cold War, the Mediterranean was a central zone of conflict between the superpowers, and the Sea’s riparian states found it difficult to maintain their space between the NATO alliance on the one hand and the Warsaw Pact on the other. As a consequence, some Mediterranean states were closer to the West while others to the Soviet bloc. The area has also had significant interstate conflicts as in 1956, 1967 and 1973 and local conflicts and tensions like the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the pressures between Greece and Turkey causing great fractures and cracks between countries and communities of the region.
The European Union tried immediately after the Cold War to workout Euro-Mediterranean relations through the Barcelona Process in a global environment. In the twenty-first century although the geopolitics of the Mediterranean region have changed because of local state dynamics and because of international situations 5 UNEP - Draft Executive Summary of the 2019 State of the Environment and Development in the
and regional expansions. The European Union today is no longer such an important key actor in the Mediterranean having to balance its policies and interests against a number of other major and regional powers. Of course, the United States influences the major powers along with China and Russia, each trying to reach their main interests in the region. There are also regional powers like the ones of Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia which have very different priorities regarding the Mediterranean region, along with Turkey and Israel having a significant presence in the Mediterranean and long-established relationship with the European Union.
The new Global Strategy of the European Union is to understand how these countries consider the Mediterranean, interact among them for their interest and act as mediator to gain their own identity.
The instability on the geopolitical point of view has been caused first of all by the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Arab uprisings in the 2010s which link Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf, and key international actors such as the US, Russia, and China closely to the region the European Union, defined as the Mediterranean. Other conflicts arising in the Mediterranean do not have clear boundaries also cause massive movements of population so that migration and mobility is becoming a cross-regional issue which transits the Gulf-Horn-Libya-Europe link. Furthermore a variety of state and non-state actors have gained new political ideas which do not influence only domestic and regional structures, but also the Persian Gulf countries which have caused counter-revolutionary and military forces taking power from elected governments as in Egypt. These kinds of conflicts may keep
down issues of democracy civil liberties and human rights carried on by the European Union.
The policy area of agriculture and water is also a key for the geopolitical stability of the region and a matter of conflict, as it is essential for food security, environmental sustainability, and the everyday existence of people in the region. Europe is the agricultural geo-economic partner of the Southern Mediterranean countries, which import food for their security and two-thirds of their supply of grain come from Russia, Ukraine, and USA. As regard to water supply these countries are much linked together especially concerning the industry and energy power as they are key issues in the Mediterranean having a sustainable and an inclusive development outlook. The economic crisis in Europe has accelerated the diversification of trade partners towards the promotion of South-South cooperation outside the European Union. Many Arab countries such as Tunisia and Egypt have strengthened economic relations with Iran, Gulf Arab countries and Turkey except for Morocco which continues to trade with the European countries although it is increasing economic relationships with Africa.
It becomes progressively more important to focus on the different interconnections and policies allowing to convey in a regional alliance the influences of different actors. Consequently, the European Union’s policies need to be more flexible and with a more open and answering approach to wide and different countries often with divided, multi power and in disharmony situations.6
6 Introduction -Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Daniela Huber and Maria Cristina Paciello- Global policy – The
Mediterranean Reset:Geopolitic in a New Age Editors: Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Daniela Huber and Maria Cristina Paciello published by Global Policy ,2017 page 5 -9
Today, the Mediterranean region, is a changing political, economic, and social scene taking place within an opposed and contented geopolitical context. The region is now facing a change in its territories involving the dynamics of migration inflow, religious, and ethnic heterogeneity, extended authoritarian regimes, trade of weapons and other situations.
Due to these regional emergencies, the Euro–Mediterranean partnership does not seem to have reached the expectations and consequently has lost some of its aspiration. The European Union has proceeded, especially starting from the 1995 Barcelona Process to find solutions to inter-state conflicts in the region, like the Israeli–Palestinian matter. As the worry for security increased, so did the difficulty of tightening sustainable partnership between Mediterranean and European countries.
The 2011 period of Arab uprisings has demonstrated how the European Union approach towards its southern neighbour, has not been strong enough to defend human rights and presuming local democratic forces in the region and authoritarian regimes were a guarantee of stability in the region.
The approach of security of the European Union in the migration crisis, is focused more on border control to send back the immigrants and re-admitting them in their countries instead of ensuring the practice of fundamental human rights.
In 2016 the biggest obstacles of the region were unemployment, lack of democracy, rising cost of living and civil state of agitation. As a result, the lack of
jobs and opportunities is one of the main recruitment topics for terrorist groups like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).7
3. The Mediterranean region’s geopolitics
The Mediterranean is at the centre of the world’s attention influencing repeatedly geopolitical tensions in international relations on a global level, going through a period of unrest and conflicts but also other less complex transformations like the weakening of European democracy, climate change, unpromising economic prospects or social digitization will decide the future of the Euro Mediterranean area in the next years.
The complex crisis of the European Union actually going on, can comprise critically the progress in the development of the Euro Mediterranean depending on a multitude of factors some inside and some outside the Union such as the economic crisis, USA and Russia positions, the security crises , rise of Islamic terrorism and the refugee crisis. The economic and refugee crises have had significant impact on Europe’s principal of solidarity and priority of economic and social integration. The most powerful nations are still the ones which make the rules like the extreme situation of the Brexit that has caused the exist of Great Britain from the European Union, weakening democracy and forcing a reorganization of the whole European community.
7 The Remaking of the Euro-Mediterranean Vision Challenging Eurocentrism with Local Perceptions in the
Middle East and North Africa Aybars Görgülü & Gülşah Dark Kahyaoğlu (eds)-GLOBAL POLITICS AND SECURITY • Series Editor: Lorenzo Kamel – Zeynep Gülöz Bakır and Gülşah Dark Kahyaoğlu Introduction page 15-19
The migration situation and the Mediterranean frontiers are of major attention and the European Union has revealed itself unable to follow a common European migration policy.
Meanwhile, the Mediterranean Sea continues to claim thousands of lives every year, as people try to cross the last boarder before arriving in Europe. Instability in sub-Saharan Africa, the Libyan crisis, with people struggling to pass the borders to enter in Europe are causing more and more forms of nationalism, xenophobia, and the increasing situation of NGOs to operate in these conditions.
Another key element in Mediterranean geopolitics is the role and the influence of Turkey in the region and its power in Euro Mediterranean politics. Eight years of war, Syria in a distressing situation, has become the stage of different geopolitical tensions demonstrating that international communities have failed to find a solution to the conflict. Syria is not only the theatre of civil war but a complicated interlink of geopolitical tensions of the world power players like USA and Russia and closer regional actors like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey along with internal uprising movements.
A new challenge in the Mediterranean social- economic and politics is certainly the digital transformation which will represent an outstanding change on geopolitics, cybersecurity and political or governmental promotion as well as the digital economy’s potential cooperation and convergence between countries.
The framework of events in the Mediterranean area are well known as the resolution of the debates between Greece and North Macedonia ended in an agreement, the protests in Algeria, which have led to the fall of Bouteflika bringing a period of hope, business relations with India, the opening of Arab women
economic empowerment, the function of NATO in the Mediterranean, energy politics and their geopolitical implications of Russia and religious embodiment and the spreading of Maghreb countries in sub-Saharan Africa. 8
Font: IE Med Mediterranean Yearbook 2019
8 IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2019 -Foreword - Senén Florensa, President of the Executive Committee,
CHAPTER 1.
THE MEDITERRANEAN A MELTING POT OF
CIVILIZATION - GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE COUNTRIES
FACING THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
1.1 The perception of the European Union in the Mediterranean countries
Although the European Union is seen as an important partner for economic growth, institutional building, educational, and health systems, the Mediterranean policies of the European Union put in act, in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, were not fully realized due to structural limitations within each country, including authoritarian rule, corruption, lack of governance, and also infrastructures and increasingly focused on security and migration.
Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia do not much consider the term and concept of the Mediterranean as a region. They consider the European Union as an international partner providing an economic benefit for trade and business relationships. For Saudi Arabia, the main ally is the USA and keeps bilateral relations only with specific European Union member-nations, and has no particular interest in the European Union’s view of the Mediterranean, seen mostly as a strategy to develop essential policies with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran.
Although the European Union is considered as a strategic ally to Israel however it disagrees with Israel over the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Israel’s violation of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and also with other member states.
Turkey as a candidate country to enter the European Union as a key partner, first applied in 1999, but still hasn’t entered the Union, is connected to Europe trying to delineate political and economic integration, but it is crossed by continuous
tensions and hostilities which certainly influence the bilateral relationship and a forthcoming entry. Therefore, the negotiations have been many times over the years slowed down leading to a Euro-sceptic attitude among some countries of the European Union. The relationship between European Union and Turkey have been more defined by migration and security matters arising from regional conflicts in particular in recent times by the Syrian war.
The perception of the Mediterranean and the European Union is surely seen as a key link with the changing geopolitical dynamics for countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt, which are strongly determined by migration, trade, and energy of the conflicted territories. Morocco and Tunisia consider the European Union important in supporting their vision of a ‘united Maghreb’ in the region. As far as Israel is concerned, the relationship with the Mediterranean mostly is involved in natural gas deposits.9
1.2 Mediterranean in the age of globalization
Globalization causes different ways of facing strategic economic and political processes and can sometimes divide territories outside the European Union. On one side the closing of borders and on the other, the increasingly desire of citizens to travel and move show the two contradiction situations of the global economy. The limits of free circulation experienced by migrants searching for
9 Revised version of a European Policy Brief prepared for the MEDRESET project and includes parts from a
MEDRESET policy report authored by Gülşah Dark. See MEDRESET Project, ‘Elite Survey: How Local Elites Perceive the EU and its Policies in the Mediterranean’, in European Policy Briefs, December 2018, http://www.medreset.eu/?p=13741; Gülşah Dark, ‘The EU Seen from the Outside: Local Elite Perceptions on the Role and Effectiveness of the EU in the Mediterranean Region’, in MEDRESET Policy Papers, No. 5 (November 2018), http://www.medreset.eu/?p=13672. Global policy – The Mediterranean Reset:Geopolitic in a New Age Editors : Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Daniela Huber and Maria Cristina Paciello published by Global Policy ,2017 Conclusion page -295 -302
freedom are some how contradictory to the free market principles of Europe’s major cities which are demanding for cheap labour and a growing global capitalist economy aiming to reduce borders. The global free market, through restrictive entry, obviously places limitation measures on workers’ freedom which nation-states have the sovereign power to apply. While richer countries, as those of the European Union, are willing to sustain a global job market for skilled workers. Meanwhile, despite the fact the European Union borders have been closed, in many parts of the Mediterranean people continue to find new strategies to plan their lives by using spatial mobility. Nowadays, the Mediterranean represents one of the most active North-South shortcomings in globalized employment causing socio economic contrasts and migratory different complex interactions deriving from global inequality and instability.
The migration frontier has now changed direction, while during the 1850s and the 1960s it went through the Alps and the Pyrenees, it now goes from East to West along the Mediterranean from Istanbul to the Straits of Gibraltar. 10
The Mediterranean, at the crossroad of three continents, is an area where important strategic issues have long caused friction, as between Arabs and Europeans, colonization, discord between powers, domination of the straits and the Suez Canal. Today, it is still a space of confrontation between great powers as Russia and United States.
We must first of all re-position the Mediterranean within the current global context, no longer the centre of the world, with the discovery of the New World, the Atlantic ocean has taken its place and even more the Pacific area, is now the central 10 Nathalia Ribas-Mateos-Migration Welfare and Boarders- The Mediterranean in the age of
position with USA and China facing each other. The characteristics of the Mediterranean today could be defined as complex side space.
This space is also a critical spot, affected by local tensions, especially in terrorism at a global stage. In the South and East in particular, it is also an area for ideological projection as Pan-Arabism. The Mediterranean’s status is a passageway between East and West, outlined by major economic, social, and political different emergency situations, regional destabilization, and transnational threats, such as illegal traffics of drugs, currency, illegal arm trafficking and terrorism.
The major world-class powers operate in the region through “client” states, which they support politically and militarily as for example the Franco-British intervention in Libya in 2011, which was a powerful destabilizing factor. In the case of the Syrian crisis, the Russians are on the traditional line, the Americans refuse to engage further in confrontation and the Europeans, in particular the French and British, in the first place were unable to play a leading role.
The American military presence in the Mediterranean which cost and usefulness have been called into question since George W. Bush, with Obama there had been a shift towards Asia, while Trump’s isolationism goes further in the same direction. The Russian military fleet can only access the Mediterranean via the Black Sea and the access to the Mediterranean is controlled by the Turks are members of NATO. The Chinese have understood that the Mediterranean is an “ultra-peripheral” space and yet, the Chinese are more interested in the African countries trying to apply a containment strategy upon both the American power and the European power.
Moreover, this particular area is considered a space for economic expansion by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran and lately even Morocco, due to its new political stability, has achieved an important industrial partnership with Europe in particular automotive, commercial, textile and agriculture.
Europe considers the geopolitical function of the Mediterranean as fundamental but also very difficult to keep under control due to the many political problems, we have referred above regarding refugees mostly like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal which are in a very difficult condition due to poor neighbourhood policies. The political instability is still only one of the problems of the Mediterranean concerning the major concern of the Islamist tensions in particular in the East like in Syria, Arabia, Lebanon and Turkey as in the West, Morocco, and North like the terrorist attacks in Europe.
There are however substantial differences, in development and economic dynamism, among the countries coasting the basin like between Greece and northern Europe, also between Italy and France and the northern countries. Between the two shores of the Mediterranean, there is a large part of the population that cannot access the benefits of globalization as for example, to essential life standards as water, education, health and labour and still are ruled by authoritarian, and even dictatorial, political establishments. It is an overly complicated social question that is difficult to resolve because of its religious identity and historical controversies.
The project for a Union for the Mediterranean, founded on 13 July 2008, with the participation of 43 countries, with its international projects and conferences, from women’s employment to digital technology, 1.5 billion euros worth of projects,
which only a few million euros have been spent, revealing itself in part unprofitable. In 1995 the so-called Barcelona Process was instituted mostly as a tool for development and security, but still has not yet given the expected achievements. On the southern shore of the Mediterranean, the Union for the Mediterranean has anyway always had evident geopolitical limits. Morocco applied to be admitted in the European Union in 1984 but was refused in 1987, the same year Turkey also sent its application.
Europe certainly realized that the Mediterranean has a great potential economic development capacity as in industry, manufacture, and agriculture. There are different opinions regarding the position of the European countries towards the Mediterranean, which remain attached even symbolically to their colonization history regarding military, technological, economic, demographic and law which have created positive and negative contrasts but need economic development and have their own permanent political governments. In contrast with the aging countries of Europe, the Mediterranean countries have a growing young population which migration needs integration solutions based on equality and tolerance.
Today there is an increase in labour competence especially in fruit and wine production sectors. France and Spain already rely on southern Mediterranean workers but offer low wages and low standards working conditions. In the near future more competitive professions and skills will come from the Mediterranean new generations supplying always more prepared immigration flow of high professional standards as medical doctors, nurses, engineers, and managers.
The Mediterranean can become a model of development, a unique space for a mix of intercultural. A region composed of alternative, new cutting-edge societies including new smoother forms of religion, a new collaborative development of skills globally recognized.
Accordingly, the Mediterranean region is one of the major challenges of an era in which we need to look towards marginal spaces to better understand the world and open towards a redefinition of the European boarders.11
1.3 The Italian strategy in the Mediterranean - guidelines to stabilize the crisis and build a positive agenda for the region
Following are described Italy’s position and issues proposed to analyze and find a common path to overcome the problems of the Mediterranean of which integration is still the main challenge. Mostly increasing integration and geopolitical interaction and stability among Maghreb, Near East, and Persian Gulf.
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued the guidelines for an integrated approach to the region as a “Dictionary of the Mediterranean” also in the name of Giulio Regeni, murdered in Egypt in January 2016 and is determined to obtain justice to this horrible crime. Italy in particular has included as a priority the question of Mediterranean region. In the recent years it has been demonstrated that peace and stability is a priority of the Mediterranean countries to undertake a difficult process.
The United States, Europe, Russia, and China can no longer influence or act ensuring the stability in Middle East even though the international community
discourages conflict and is still trying to encourage collective regional empowerment and collaboration.
The recent history of the Mediterranean has demonstrated that there are no unilateral political or military unique solutions to stabilize the region. Dialogue, cooperation, and inclusiveness are long-term solutions that are required to settle the actual crises in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen to handle with diplomacy policies the complicated Mediterranean situation. Open opportunities for convergence, sustainable stability and peace in the relationships between states, and in their domestic dynamics, using a multidimensional strategy of approach with different traditions, cultures and ethnic, especially in the areas liberated from the jihadists, comprising Syria which will need political inclusiveness conditions.
The Mediterranean offers social and economic opportunities, and therefore Italy is convinced that it is necessary to insist on establishing strong Euro-Mediterranean partnership. Italy’s export in the Mediterranean region is around 9,8% of the whole Italian export, including the Gulf area reaching 70 billion euro.
In the future years, there are in fact very interesting possibilities and chances offered especially by the Blue economy for some Gulf countries which aim to diversify their income by planning financial changes in the public sectors to attract investments in the area, mostly regarding energy and logistics development. Regional integration and globalization of the Mediterranean countries are necessarily required, to create an inter-regional joint economic development. The European Union, the Gulf countries, the United States, China, Russia, private companies and investors must be all engaged to achieve this important economic
development, integration and climate change project regarding the Maghreb, the Near East and the Gulf region, as well as the Balkans and the Black Sea countries. Italy has planned a solidarity and security program regarding migration flows from the African Mediterranean countries which have reached a serious point with more than 650,000 migrants spread in all the European countries to encourage cooperation for border supervising and turn down human traffickers. The objective is to continue to support new development policies and partnership with Libya, Niger, Chad and Tunisia, to help migrants when repatriated to their home countries within a general sustainable development partnership between European, Mediterranean and African countries to stop wars, human rights violation and poverty . It is likely that the population in African states will double by 2050, reaching 2.5 billion people.
Culture has to become the real identification and absolute of the Mediterranean, not only an instrument for inclusion and relation but an important driver of sustainable development ,economic growth, social inclusion and environment awareness, creating dialogue among cultures of the Jewish, Christian, Greek-Latin and Arab-Islam, living together in peace and respecting the different religions and ethics.
Italy defends minorities, especially if persecuted and guarantees migrants and refugees self respect. The government is also undertaking new policies to assure women rights and security in the region. Only through a good governance and efficiency it is possible to ensure education and healthcare standards, creating new opportunities for an inclusive growth and overcoming radicalization.
The military defeat of Daesh in Mosul and Raqqa with the dissolution of the self-proclaimed “Caliphate” opened again the possibility to bring regional order but the governance phase will require the reconstruction of a mutual trust among the states of the Mediterranean.
Italy believes that the coexistence and cooperation principles of Helsinki Final Act in 1975 could bring some inspiration for the Mediterranean, not by recreating borders, but giving responsibility to the various local communities, adapting and creating more inclusiveness of the governance systems of the states that already exist as Syria, Iraq and Libya .12
1.4 Migration in a globalized world
Globalization has largely changed migration since 1989. During the Cold War, migration was mostly from south to north, within the borders of the two opposing blocs: The United States and Europe in the West, and the Soviet Union and Eastern states. While migrants from developing countries under Western influence moved to North America, Europe and Oceania, migrants from countries under a communist regime moved to the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Migration became, in this particular historical moment, an instrument of ideological manipulation and political influence. The West were fighting for universal civil rights and freedom, while for the East, equality determined financial investments in the Third World countries with military protection in return for basic commodities. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the number of migrants respect to the world population, has remained, more or less the same, since the increasing number of 12 MED – Mediterranean Dialogues- FARNESINA -Ministero degli affari Esteri e della Cooperazione
internazionale -THE ITALIAN STRATEGY IN THE MEDITERRANEANSTABILISING THE CRISES AND BUILDING A POSITIVE AGENDA FOR THE REGION - 3rd Edition Rome 2017 page 1 – 13
migrants is matched by the growth of the worldwide population. On the other hand, the global migration passages have become more south-south with an increase of single women migration and unaccompanied minors.
Free trade was established in 1994 with foundation of the World Trade Organization, for a free commercial and financial market but globalization does not combine with the mobility of persons and therefore of labour force. Although finance and goods move easily across countries, people have great problems in both leaving their states of origin and moving to other countries to work or even for travel.
Also, the globalized economic condition, with the progressive reduction of public welfare, reduced the political and economic capacity action of individual states, weakening their policies influence by the fluctuating international financial markets. As a result, it created even more wealth inequalities, increasing economic instability and social division in many areas, in particular in the Third World.
In the last twenty-five years, besides from the economic situation, migration has been altered by geopolitical instability, changes in individuals’ system of representations and beliefs and the increasing barriers to human mobility worldwide.13
Migration of the Mediterranean countries has become an increasing problem in recent years with dramatic consequences for the entire region, especially those on the south shore with significant repercussions for the economic development.
13 IAI -Istituto Affari Esteri – Who’s afraid of migration? A New European Narrative of Migration by Stefano
Due to its strategic geographic and political position Italy can play a major important role in the Mediterranean framework by encouraging communication and relationship between North and South, trying to employ the best policies and find a common solution regarding the problem of migrations in the countries of the Southern Mediterranean.
The particularity of the Mediterranean today is that it is a trade and intense economic midpoint and still is, the cradle of different civilizations and cultures, a crossroad between different nations resulting as a problematic reality with significant political, economic instability and religious intolerance. The most critical countries are Libya, the Horn of Africa and the Sub-Saharan Africa region with serious migration emergencies which are the effects of the failure of the transformation of Iraq into a democracy.
Especially between the countries of the North and South Mediterranean there are serious economic problems, in particular the energy issue as the oil and gas deposits and distribution, along with the commercial trade and maritime traffic, migrations and security.
Unfortunately, no progress has been made as regards to the policies referring to the Barcelona Declaration of 1995, promoting development and cooperation of the European Union towards the southern shore nations of the Mediterranean. On the contrary the relations in the region seem to become more problematic and more adversary and far from being a meeting place of different cultures and communities.
Italy, because of its strategic geographical and political position in the area, is without doubts an important key player of the Mediterranean's economic
development, but also for the security and stability of the area giving a significant hand in economic development topics and migration problems in the Southern Mediterranean countries and willing to put into practice the most suitable policies together with the European countries.14
Font: Plan Bleu - 2009
14 Schilirò, DanielDepartment of Economics, University of Messina Mediterranean, migrations and
economidevelopment -Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/83051/ MPRA Paper No. 83051, October 2015 posted 01 Dec 2017
CHAPTER 2.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AS A SOCIAL AGENT
TO TRANSFORM THE MEDITERRANEAN IN AN AREA OF PEACE
2.1 Peace – the pillar of human rightsPeace is defined as a state of serenity and freedom without civil disorders. Peace is a state of security or order within a community based on rules and customs. Peace is a mediation to get to an agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity.15
Johan Galtung, the founder of peace studies, often refers to the distinction between ‘negative peace’ and ‘positive peace’. Negative peace refers to the absence of violence. When there is only a stop firing for example, a negative peace will turn out because something troublesome stopped happening as the violence ended but there is no will to an agreement. Positive peace on the other hand brings in positive contents such as the will to bring back relationships through the demand of the population of a constructive resolution of a conflict.16 Peace can co-exist with a conflicted situation, as long as there is the absence of any kind of violence and the conflict develops in a transforming constructive way. Peace is therefore present where people are living in a non-violent manner, conducting their conflict with positive approach, respectful attention to the legitimate needs and interest of their relative parties.
15 Merriam Webster Dictionary -definition of Peace
16 Galtung J., Fischer D. Positive and Negative Peace. In: Johan Galtung. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in
Today the whole world believes that peace and human rights are absolutely essential for every human being living in this planet. The observation and respect of human rights is the necessary element to reach peace.
Therefore, above all in contemporary societies, the right to peace has become the key element as one of the fundamental rights of mankind.
Peace passes through history, geography, and various types of organizations among people from an interpersonal peace through nations to regional and civil relations. Peace is an everlasting opposer to social inequality.
Peace can be determined as a structural peace based on logic or as a cultural peace based on an balanced and fair position collaborating in harmony, conscious of other threatened by direct violence with a re-approach and conflicts which have not found a resolution.
Johan Galtung determines peace with four factors:
“1. More equity: cooperative behaviour for mutual and equal benefit.
2. More harmony: emphatic attitudes of emotional resonance, as the sense of enjoying the joy and suffer the suffering, of other.
3. Less trauma: reconciliation, clearing the past, acknowledging wrongs, wishing them undone, and dialogues to create a future together.
4. Less conflict: resolution, acceptable and sustainable, making incompatible goals compatible, and changing negative attitudes and behaviour.”17
17Galtung, J., Fischer, D., 2013. Positive and Negative Peace. In: Johan Galtung Springer Briefs on Pioneers
2.2 Tourism – a suitable tool
Tourism is a global engine constantly growing worldwide, dealing with different frameworks and professions starting from travel, accommodation, entertainment, arranging travelling conditions and trips for travellers and tourists from all over the world, searching always new and suitable enhancement and promotion solutions. Tourism is a suitable tool approaching cultures and getting people to know about different cultures and countries. Tourism is one of the most important and powerful vehicles of relationship between people and states and can be a great global peacemaker together with international politic diplomacy. Tourism, as a relevant agent to challenge new opportunities and overcome insecurity and terrorism. Experts believe that the tourism sector generates a considerable influence on the establishment of peace in the world through the promotion of civilizations and cultural heritage. Therefore, it is recognized as a suitable approach to extend peace among different nations of the world.
2.3 Relationship between tourism and peace
There is a natural link between tourism and peace. There can be no tourism without peace. Above all tourism is a beneficiary of peace and closely depends on peace and security. The power of tourism is to create and encourage the way towards dialogue, mutual understanding and tolerance which should be the pillar of a culture of peace. A sustainable, well-managed tourism sector contributes to building segments of peace such as attitudes, institutions, and conditions upon which peaceful societies are built upon as democracy, education, and reconciliation. The potential relationship between tourism and peace highlights the
key issues of a ‘culture of peace’ and global citizenship, peace, and reconciliation together with safe conditions. Although tourism alone cannot bring about peace, it has the capacity of connecting different cultures together and can boost mutual understanding between travellers and hosts, to open out to peace and reconciliation granting safety issuing sustainable tourism.18 The relation between peace and tourism has become a global phenomena and a very important promoter of peace.
From the 1967 United Nation International Year of Tourism - Passport for Peace, to the 2016 United Nation World Tourism Organization - Conference on Tourism: “A Catalyst for Development, Peace and Reconciliation”, tourism has emerged gaining more and more attention as an extraordinary potential promotion agent enhancing how the links between tourism and peace need to be discussed buy the international community. Tourism has been again and again pointed out to have the power to change attitudes and build cultural know how, economic growth, poverty overcome, cultural heritage and environmental safeguard.19
Tourism and peace have become study research and an activity sector since the 1980s and has assumed always more importance and attention from the global community. It is a continuously growing field with enormous economic, environmental and socio-cultural impacts representing a system of promoting peace and mutual recognition.20 A more specific contribution of tourism to peace
18 World Tourism Organization - Tourism for Development – Volume I: Key Areas for Action, UNWTO,
Madrid, DOI: https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284419722 Mutual understanding, peace and security - (2018), page 91
19 World Tourism Organization , Tourism for Development – Volume I: Key Areas for Action, UNWTO,
Madrid, DOI: https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284419722 -Pillar 5: Mutual understanding, peace and security-pages ( 2018 ) 91-92
20 Cordula Wohlmuther, Werner WintersteinerTourism and Peace – an Emerging Field of Action and
should be studied to understand how it can help to achieve and preserve peace and harmony both within a nation and among nations.
The relationship between tourism and peace, must be carried out through a new concept of ‘peace-sensitive tourism’, by placing tourism in the context of other activities and models which promote peace. In relation to a peace-sensitive tourism, new and different tourism forms have developed such as ‘alternative’, ‘responsible’ and ‘sustainable’ tourism.
The above indicated types of tourism have all different guidelines and characteristics, where the relationship with peace emerges and above all the ethical basis of inclusiveness and environment must not damage the local inhabitants. Democracy is therefore considered the basic element for a peace-sensitive tourism.
‘Alternative tourism’ was defined in the in the1980, trying to answer how tourism development can have a more sensitive approach with local communities and environment, cultures and religious traditions and become a way of giving more equal shares of tourism economy to the local population especially in poor countries.
Ecotourism is also a kind of alternative tourism, defined as ethical low-impact, soft, green tourism having a conscious approach towards nature, populations, and culture heritage.
‘Responsible tourism’ first is mentioned in the ‘Cape Town Declaration’ in 2002, economic, environmental, and social responsibility, being its main concern.
WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education of the Klagenfurt University/Austria in cooperation with World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) page 17
Responsible tourism sustains an ethical approach with sustainable guiding principles, involving all the different operators and stakeholders.
The ‘sustainable tourism’ development approach was introduced for the first time at the First Global Conference held in Vancouver in 1988. It was then introduced in the ‘Agenda 21’, an outcome of the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 and in the indicators’ guidelines for sustainable tourism by the World Tourism Organization. It considers using tourism as a way to obtain ‘sustainable development to create social and environmental achievements. Sustainability is applied by the different stakeholders with guiding principles, regarding the relation between tourism and the environment, tourism activities and the local community. Tourism sustainability becomes therefore a valuable instrument to obtain self consciousness to respect and protect environment, culture, and societies.21
2.4 Tourism as a Contribution to the Culture of Peace and Global citizenship
The United Nations defines “the Culture of Peace” as a set of values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations”.22 It is
21Cordula Wohlmuther, Werner Wintersteiner - Peace Sensitive Tourism: How Tourism Can Contribute to
Peace - International Handbook of Tourism and Peace CORDULA WOHLMUTHER WERNER WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Educationof the Klagenfurt University/Austriain cooperation with World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) from page 32 to 35
22 UN Resolutions A/RES/52/13: Culture of Peace and A/53/243: Declaration and Program of Action on a
oriented towards a non-violence attitude and therefore needs a transformation in order to be applied in all the sectors of the society.
Tourism can indeed contribute with different kinds of tourism which may lead to conflict resolution, intercultural understanding, and social justice.
Even though the way tourism may help in bringing peace in the world is not simple to trigger, there are many best practices of alternative forms of tourism contributing to conflict resolution, greater intercultural understanding, and even global social equality. A culture of peace, based on ethic code, culture, tradition, poverty reduction, promotes sustainable development, by involving local people in decision-making subjects regarding tourism development. Even though a culture of peace requires a deep transformation of politics, daily life and culture, tourism can aim to acquire peace potentials by considering tourism as an experience which may open people’s mind discovering different living modes and conditions for a mutual cross-border tourism, narrating experiences. A kind of peace tourism involvement, where tourists are aware of their responsibility to contribute to a culture of peace by participating to this kind of tourism activity. There is today a great awareness although still much to be done and studied to create a culture of peace.23
23 Cordula Wohlmuther, Werner Wintersteiner - Peace Sensitive Tourism: How Tourism Can Contribute to
Peace - International Handbook of Tourism and Peace CORDULA WOHLMUTHE WERNER WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Educationof the Klagenfurt University/Austria in cooperation with World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) from page 52 to 59
Tourism through a culture of peace with dialogue and negotiation can go beyond frictions, giving the opportunity to people and different cultures to co-exist especially between hosts and guests. A peace-sensitive tourism where local communities are actively involved in the processes of decision making for ethical sustainable, responsible, and inclusive tourism. Both in travellers and hosts, the culture of peace can develop a mutual self respect and identity, providing significant experiences and education, becoming a “global citizen”, having a sense of belonging to the world community, in particular cultural frameworks, destinations and communities willing to embody diversity as global values and prepared to share their own identity and culture. The global citizen experience can promote the understanding of different cultures based on human rights, responsibilities and actions, an arch linking destinations in a peace sensitive tourism, peace building and international cooperation of human rights and social justice.24
Peace is often considered only as a political question. As mentioned above, two or more states or parties, which have fought against each other, decide to lay down their weapons and to ‘make peace’ according to Galtung – is called ‘negative peace’.
Studies affirm that most peace processes do not last because they are not founded on reconciliation and justice. Therefore we do not only need peace, but also a ‘culture of peace’, with the awareness that discord has to be settled in
24 Cordula Wohlmuther, Werner Wintersteiner - Peace Sensitive Tourism: How Tourism Can Contribute to
Peace - International Handbook of Tourism and Peace CORDULA WOHLMUTHE WERNER WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Educationof the Klagenfurt University/Austria in cooperation with World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) from page 93 to 95
a non-violent way in all sectors of society, contributing to a deep transformation of the meaning of a culture of peace.25
2.5 Sustainable tourism and Peace
The International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development was named in 2017 by the United Nation General Assembly, officially recognizing the importance and the role of international tourism, the awareness of the values of cultural and the splendid valuable civilization heritage, contributing to lead the world to long lasting peace. The Tourism industry can be a great conveyor of sustainability from an economic, social, and environmental point of view, raising public awareness of the real value it can produce.
Tourism has been noted in three of the MDG - Millennium Development Goals of the 2030 guidelines, concerning promotion, economic, universal and sustainable growth and to be employed for the environment in production and consumption goal, marine resources and protection for sustainable development.26
The UNWTO – United Nations World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as: “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities”.27 Peace and prosperity have become always more unequal. Peaceful countries, becoming increasingly prosperous and
25 Rami K. Isacc – paper Responsable Tourism and Development in the context of Peace Building-Tourism as
a Tool for Promoting Peace January 2014 page 50 to 52
26 The-Relationship-between-Peace-and-Tourism http://www.odvv.org/blog-1994 27 EU-Guidebook-on-Sustainable-Tourism-for-Development - www.unwto.org
peaceful while countries where there is no peace yet more violent and struggling in wars.
Open and sustainable tourism can be a force for peace and become a major source of income and employment for many countries, particularly in the south of the world where tourism flows within and between countries, allowing exchange of cultures and economic development, expanding minds and opinions so that individuals may become more informed and tolerant towards their fellow inhabitants of the world.
Sustainable tourism can facilitate economic growth as cash is injected into an economy through spending and employment as the tourism sector grows to accommodate the increasing demand of tourists. Tourism can also facilitate diplomatic and trade relationship between countries, fostering an easier social, cultural, economic, environmental, and political approach, facilitating tourism to follow the path toward peace and good living.
There is definitely a strong relationship between sustainability and the three dimensions of peace: the absence of violence and conflict as in negative peace, or in a positive peace created by institutions or other systems, as a peaceful society and the absence of terrorism. The global tourism trend opens to tourism sustainability, of course in different ways according to the structures of the various regions.
Tourism and peace are still a new concept of tourism in a continuously growing field with enormous economic, environmental, and socio-cultural impacts. Peace has to do with planning international cooperation, mitigating and preventing potential negative impacts of tourism, human rights, and attitudes.
A peace-sensitive tourism aims to contribute to democracy and make people conscious of its economic and social responsibility aiming to become a nonviolent conflict institution.28
Responsibility and hope are fundamental in respect to areas of conflicts. Peace building and hope may be associated with new tourism and focusing on responsible tourism, encouraging, and motivating people to take responsibility to pursue a sustainable tourism, considering the ethical aspects of the mindfulness of sustainability in peace building development contexts.
The responsible tourist chooses to travel behaving in a way not to damage the habitat, taking care, and having a greater attention on the local communities he will meet during his journey and pay attention and respect to their traditions and culture. This will also allow the tourist to spend his money in a better manner in services and local products. It will influence the kind of accommodation chosen as well as food, mean of transport, what to take home as souvenirs, always with responsible awareness and conscious of his ethic principles. The responsible tourist schedules his holiday and lives the experiences of his visits searching authenticity and with a responsible environment approach.
There is not a clean-cut definition of the responsible tourist but as to focus on the responsible approach of the tourist as respect to local regulations, religion, cultural behaviours, bearing in mind not to damage natural resources of the area.29
28 International Handbook of Tourism and Peace CORDULA WOHLMUTHER WERNER
WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education
of the Klagenfurt University/Austriain cooperation with World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 2013
29 WERNER WINTERSTEINER Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education of the Klagenfurt
A responsible tourist, first of all embodies an environmental trustworthy and an ethical approach, capable of supporting peace building and creating through the visit of different sites and countries hope and real enhancement in education, healthcare, youth training and empowerment.
Most tourists are willing to have a responsible experience holiday, especially if they are informed, before undertaking the journey, how to support the local economy and preserve the environment. There are always more tourists who are willing to have more information on social, cultural, and environmental matters while travelling and do not want to deteriorate the places they visit. In destinations in conflict, this could be a good way for tourist to contribute to peace building and give an ambition of hope. Responsible tourists can be stimulated to think upon the culture of the place and try to get to know more about what’s happening in the region, from everyday life of the community to social, cultural and economic conditions of the country and enhance the development of new projects and activities which support the destination in a new mindfulness advance. 30
2.6 Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD)
The Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2025 determines a strategic policy trying to assure a sustainable future for the Mediterranean region aiming to sustainable development goals in the field of socio-economic and environment.
30 Rami K. Isacc – paper Responsible Toursim and Development in the context of Peace building- Relevance
“A prosperous and peaceful Mediterranean region in which people enjoy a high quality of life and where sustainable development takes place within the carrying capacity of healthy ecosystems. This is achieved through common objectives, strong involvement of all stakeholders, cooperation, solidarity, equity and governance.”31
MSSD 2016-2025 follows a structure based on six objectives for an integrated approach to address sustainability issues. The Strategy reflects a territorial approach, others are crosscutting and can be summarized as the following:
1. Ensuring sustainable development in marine and coastal areas
2. Promoting resource management, food production and food security through sustainable forms of rural development
3. Planning and managing sustainable Mediterranean cities
4. Addressing climate change as a priority issue for the Mediterranean 5. Transition towards a green and blue economy
6. Improving governance in support of sustainable development
The above objectives are sustained by national and regional implementation, aiming to furnish guidelines and inspirations to develop a shared strategy. Not all countries may have the same necessity or the resources to undertake all the above suggested actions and therefore these actions must automatically need to be adapted to the needs of the single nations and areas. MSSD 2016-2025 study the means for finance resources implementation and try to understand how they can be applied as well as the governance preconditions and requirements.
31UNEP/MAP Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2025. Valbonne. Plan Bleu,
A comprehensive monitoring system is also necessary through the establishment of an instrument board of sustainability indicators suitable for the Mediterranean. Through a shared brainstorming with Mediterranean decision-makers and experts, Plan Blue32 is now defining a regional process to check how the MSSD 2016-2025 implementation can be accustomed to the SDG sin the Mediterranean region.33 The main target is to adapt these goals to the region and adopt a national sustainable development guide which can lead stakeholders and interested parts together with regional cooperation to develop sustainable projects.
The goal of this method is to achieve interactions between socio-economic and environmental tasks, conform international engagements to regional conditions, guide national strategies for sustainable development, and stimulate regional cooperation between stakeholders to go towards a sustainable development. The concept is “believing in environmental sustainability to achieve social and economic development” and therefore putting resources and investing in the environment because capable of creating long-term sustainable jobs and social economic involvement, in order to attract new sustainable investments. The method in fact aims to catch the attention of national and regional institutions as well as stakeholders as entrepreneurs and operators in different social and economic sectors, promoting the establishment of common agreements able to increase capability and the competence in putting into action all those suitable elements to go towards a sustainable development in the Mediterranean.
32 www.planblue.org
33 UNEP/MAP Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2025. Valbonne. Plan Bleu,
