
3rd Steering Committee of MedNC programme allows creation of transnational links among local partners from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia
Barcelona, 27 February 2015. In collaboration with the Office of Economic Cooperation for Mediterranean and Middle East (OCEMO), the Second Chance School of Marseille (E2C) and the French Development Agency (AFD), the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean organised the 3rd Steering Committee of the Mediterranean New Chance programme (MedNC). It was the first regional meeting related to the project after MedNC was labelled by the UfM in December 2014.
The meeting, which took place at the premises of the UfM Secretariat in Barcelona, aimed at taking stock of the work performed so far and discussing the way to move forward. Above all, it focused on developing synergies, exchanging experiences and sharing best practices among the local partners of the MedNC consortium.
Deputy Secretary General for Higher Education and Research, Prof. Ilan Chet, underlined the importance of the regional approach by affirming that “given the magnitude of the challenge of unemployment in the Mediterranean region, it is fundamental to strengthening the cooperation between the major stakeholders working in favour of the social and professional integration of young people”.
Among those participating in the meeting were representatives of three different schemes from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia which are currently part of the MedNC Network or which will potentially join it in the near future. In Morocco, the OCP Skills centres are promoted by the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP) while, in Tunisia, the ISCAE New Chance programme is developed by the Institut Supérieur de Comptabilité et d’Administration des Entreprises (ISCAE – Manouba University). In Algeria, local partners have been identified.
The MedNC programme, which has already been launched in Tunisia and will be implemented in Algeria and Morocco to benefit around 1,500 young people by the end of 2016 (60% of them women), could be adapted and replicated in other countries of the Mediterranean region at a later stage.