Highlights

The Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) is organizing a technical workshop on “Enhancing resilience to Climate Change”. Governments, local authorities, development agencies, associations, enterprises and youth networks have been invited to address the issue of risks associated with climate change and discuss the notion of resilience as an adaptation strategy.

This event is organized in the context of the MEDCOP21 with support from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and in partnership with France Media Monde (FMM).

The development of resilience policies involves going through multiple steps: identifying risks, assessing vulnerability, preventing damage to property and people, protecting the population and infrastructures, engaging citizens and decision makers, preparing the conditions for a rapid return to normalcy, after a disaster occurs, and preparing for a fast reconstruction.

At least five action-levers are necessary to establish resilience policies a) institutions with clear mandates (central or local governments, agencies, coordination bodies); b) involved citizens and businesses; c) financial availability; d) expertise of technical tools; and e) regional collaboration networks that can facilitate the implementation of programs.

This will be a two-step debate: the current situation, the existing obstacles and the possible ways of making progress will be examined on the first day while the implementation of integrated resilience policies will follow on the second day.

The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate that consistent resilience programs will require a commitment of civil society. Two key messages will be conveyed: 

• Civil society’s support is needed more than ever before in order to convince decision makers to invest in resilience programs and implement them on the ground;
• Investing in resilience programs is possible, not necessarily expensive and is certainly not wasted money.

Day 1: Inventory-Current Situation, Existing Constraints and Possible Progress

After shedding light on the notion of resilience and associated terms (risks, robustness, and adaptation), concrete cases of measures taken by North and South are presented. The idea is also to highlight the constraints (psychological, technical, institutional, and financial) in the implementation of resilience plans.

Day 2: How to Scale-up? How to Engage Stakeholders to Develop Integrated Resilience Policies?

The second part of the workshop deals with the means and experiences that could lead to a scale-up, that is to say going from the pilot stage to the spreading of effective resilience policies on the territory. Community networks (national and international) are presented as well as innovative ways and methods of financing resilience programs.

Practical information:

Dates:

• 4 June 2015 from 4:15 pm to 6:45 pm
• 5 June 2015 from 9:00 am to 11:00 am

Place: At Villa Mediterranée in Marseille

Agendas in English and French here.