II UfM Working Group Meeting on Urban Development and Transport

Barcelona – The headquarters of the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean hosted the II UfM Working Group Meeting on Urban Development and Transport on 8th of June with the participation of 19 institutions. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Secretary General for Transport and Urban Development Ambassador Alpogan.

In his opening speech Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alpogan welcomed the newly joined institutions to the Working Group such as the Arab League, the Arab Towns Organizations, ASCAME and UCLG. He also reported to the Working Group that the Secretariat is actively participating in the preparation of the First UfM Ministerial Meeting on Urban Development which will be held on 9-10 November in Strasbourg, France, and had already sent its contribution in writing to the host country France. He underlined that with the adoption of the project guidelines and the pre-assessment criteria for urban projects, Transport and Urban Development Division is ready to receive projects and therefore a call to the countries was made in those lines.

During the meeting , France made a presentation on the upcoming Ministerial Meeting on Urban Development, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the French development Agency (AFD) made a presentation on the new framework project initiative for urban development which is elaborated with the TUDD. In addition, there were several presentations by the ASCAME and the MED-CITIES on possible UfM projects.

At the end of the meeting Deputy Secretary General Alpogan highlighted the important role of the Working Group as an advisory body for the selection of projects, also the members agreed to hold the III Meeting of the Working Group on Urban Development on the 28th of September.