Within the WestMED Assistance Mechanism for Blue Growth and Blue Economy, the National Hub Italy – an active member of the Italy IORA Committee, has hosted an online National Event on 25-26 June 2020: two sessions aimed at developing innovative cooperation to make progress and share opportunities in the fields of sustainable development and blue economy.
The core topics for this WestMED Initiative were Maritime Spatial Planning and Sustainable Coastal Tourism. Both sessions included roundtables, presentations open to all stakeholders, with afternoon sessions specifically dedicated to MSP networking sessions and Italian-Tunisian maritime clusters b2b.
The online event brought together some of Italy’s major players in the world of Blue Economy, with representatives from MOFA the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, CORILA, CNR-ISMAR, UNESCO-IOC, EU MSP Platform and others. Italy, as a dialogue partner of IORA, was delighted to invite representatives from the IORA Secretariat, Directors Gatot Gunawan and Gareth Rees, to join the discussion and provide their insights.
In particular, Gatot Gunawan shared IORA insights on MSP, as a comprehensive knowledge process aimed at formulating policies for the sustainable use of marine resources in energy, industry, environment, recreation for economic development in the Indian Ocean region.
During the discussion, many speakers welcomed the participation of IORA Secretariat, pointing out the important role played by IORA on the issues discussed, in particular MSP. Participants were reminded that in 2017, Mauritius hosted the IORA Indian Ocean Conference on “Marine Spatial Planning Towards Sustainable Use of the Indian Ocean” to provide IORA Member States with an opportunity to learn more about how to achieve their respective targets under SDG 14 by using effective MSP methodology and ending up with a precious report on this matter.
Sara Caspani