Water management and urban development in focus at ARLEM meeting

Local water management and urban development was in the spotlight of the last meeting of ARLEM (Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly), held on 2 July, with members aiming to consolidate dialogue between the three shores of the Mediterranean on the basis of practical problems.

Following its creation in Barcelona on 21 January this year, ARLEM has set up its own structures and begun operations. At its bureau meetings in the spring, it formally requested from Ahmad Masa'deh, Secretary-General of the Union for the Mediterranean, to grant ARLEM observer status in the UfM.

These meetings also saw the setting up of two commissions, each with 41 members: the commission for territorial, economic and social affairs and the commission for sustainable development. They will meet for the first time on 2 July to discuss, respectively, urban development and local water management, identified by the Bureau as priorities for the commissions' work in 2010.

ARLEM is a response to the request to put the role of regional and local authorities in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership on an institutional footing. It therefore gives the partnership a territorial dimension and seeks to involve local and regional authorities more closely in the specific projects of the Union for the Mediterranean.