Project Name: Villages – Transfer of Know-How in the Mediterranean for the sustainable development of local communities in the less favored areas.

Donor: EU ENPI CBC Med program,

Duration: 2013 – 2016

Target Beneficiaries: 250 youth & women from Ramallah & Tulkarm Rural areas

Targeted Areas: Italy \ Spain \ France \ Tunisia \ Greece \ Lebanon \ Egypt \ Palestine,

Sector: Exchange Knowledge & Experiences between the Mediteranea Courtiers for Sustainable Development

Budget: $ 243,000

About the Project:

The VILLAGES Project is a project of cross-border cooperation at the level of the Mediterranean basin, under the Axis “Promotion of dialogue cultural and local governance “, measure” Improvement of governance processes at local level”. The project aims to Improve the living conditions of the local communities in less favored rural areas in the Mediterranean by providing to the village communities instruments that allow creating their own governance system and developing their capacities to implement as catalyst of the local development, through the creation of multi-sectorial partnership. This allows slowing down, stopping or inverting the trend of rural exodus and consequently supporting the process of decentralization.

Specific objectives of the project:

1) To promote the exchange and transfer of information, policies, methodologies and good practices from the North to the South and from the South to the South.

2) To promote the communication, awareness and consciousness raising of the populations in front of their future and the dialog and citizens participation methods.

3) Elaborate with the local communities the instruments towards a local governance system and create and implement a local development strategy.

4) Evaluate an innovative cooperation method for the Mediterranean called « Countryside exchange »and adapt it to the Mediterranean context like an instrument transferability.

5) Stimulate a sustainable local development based on the cultural heritage as main axis of a new social-economical dynamic and reduce pressure on resources.

6) Create a permanent and interconnected network of villages and experts that could be the basis of the method transfer in the Mediterranean and of the publication of the Mediterranean « Countryside exchange ».

Activities and Outputs:

Exchange

Promote knowledge and feed the dialog between the partners of the Mediterranean basin in cooperating in order to find together solutions with respect to each one’s specificity. This activity concerning the exchange of information on:

• Sustainable development in the Village of the Mediterranean Sea – State of art, projects and good practices
• Local governance systems for the development of the villages

Transfer
Transfer activities through the « countryside exchange » through:

• in the South, all the partners will test the method of the « Countryside exchange », as a useful method for the concrete transfer of know-how
• in the North, each EU partner organizes a « workshop » with two important steps: 1) the presentation of one or several concrete examples on site in several domains, and 2) a critical analysis work made by the partners group,
• One event « Promotion of the village » organized locally by each partner and opened to the public in order to stimulate the attachment to the territory and the knowledge of its potentialities.

Creation of the Mediterranean Villages Network

Sustainability of the project by creating a « Mediterranean Network of development projects of Villages ».