The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM), the University of Turin and the Université Côte d’Azur of Nice, have initiated a new joint project proposal for the promotion of sustainable food systems in the Euro-Mediterranean region. The project, REFPARTS, to be funded by the European Union, will offer a dedicated double Master’s degree from the partner Universities. It will also provide a PAM Advanced Training School for directors and experts, on food production, transformation and marketing in the Euro-Mediterranean region. The right to sustainable health, food for all, and sustainable food production related concerns, will comprise the macro areas addressed by the project.
REFPARTS falls under the competence of the PAM Academic Platform, and follows up on the UNESCO Action Plan, launched in 2011, with the support of PAM, in partnership with UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs.
The PAM Advanced Training School will focus on policies for sustainable food. PAM MPs, and UN, EU and private sector experts will come together to forge innovative mechanisms of good governance and decision making processes to harmonize the legislative framework within the Euro-Mediterranean region, such as to foster public cross-border and regional food policies, discuss common threats and share best practices to achieve adequate sustainable solutions to the pressing challenges on sustainable food in the region.
In the framework of the Academic Platform, PAM has also renewed its agreement with the University Federico II of Naples (Italy), and has signed a new agreement with Bocconi University in Milan, to host interns within the Erasmus+ Programme. PAM and the University of Bari have also consolidated their partnership, established two years ago, through a number of events and projects, including a new 2nd level Master’s degree on “Leader and Leadership: Security, Rule of Law and Development” which will be launched on 20 May 2019, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defence of Italy.
PAM is also working at a new phase of the project with the University of Shanghai and the University of Salerno aimed at establishing the Pan-Mediterranean Centre on the Belt and Road Initiative. This outstanding and high-valued project for the Euro-Mediterranean region, also discussed with the UN/ECE, will contribute to share best practices, researchers, students and, eventually, train specific professional figures to be employed within the broader “Belt and road initiative” promoted by China.
Additionally, PAM is engaged, as sponsor and leading institution, in the forthcoming project “Custody of the cultural heritage in the scriptoria of the great Abbeys”, promoted by the University of Salerno, and launched at an event held at the University Campus of Salerno, on 10 May 2019.
Furthermore, a unique fellowship program for a 12 month internship for two students, one from Palestine and one from Israel respectively, will be operational over the next months, thanks to a donation granted to the PAM Secretariat. Within the expansion of its internship program, a researcher from the German University, Georg-August-Universität of Göttingen, has been accepted at the PAM’s Secretariat.