The SwitchMed Programme is implemented by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme Mediterranean Action Plan, the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) and the UN Environment Economy Division.
NOEL/Tunisia, a textile producer that has joined the MED TEST II component to become more resource efficient.
Photo: UNIDO
The SwitchMed Programme2 – a sister initiative of SWITCH-Asia – was launched in 2013 by the European Union to speed up the shift to sustainable consumption and production patterns in the southern Mediterranean, notably through the promotion of circular economy approaches and with the aim of decoupling human development from environmental degradation. Its activities benefit eight countries in the Southern Mediterranean: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia. The Programme supports policy makers, eco-innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, industries, start-ups and entrepreneurs in these southern Mediterranean countries, which have identified job creation and natural resource protection as priority issues that also contribute to their economic stability. The SwitchMed Programme accomplishes its mission through policy development, capacity building, business support services, demonstration activities and networking. The current phase of the SwitchMed Programme will continue until July 2018. SwitchMed started by establishing policy tools3 to foster an enabling environment for the switch to more sustainable consumption and consumption patterns. Between 2013 and 2015, SCP/RAC led an extensive consultation process with governments and
regional organisations to establish the SCP Action Plan for the Mediterranean4, which was adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention in February 2016. This regional plan gives clear guidelines on the actions that should be developed to shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns, long-term sustainability, circular economies and new paradigms in the use of resources. Each of the eight participating countries subsequently has elaborated its own SCP national action plan5 to integrate SCP principles formally into the national policy framework and to address its priority economic sectors. SwitchMed is now supporting these countries in the execution
of pilot demonstrations6 on the ground to implement some of the key activities from the SCP national action plans. Many of these demonstrations feature concrete examples of circular economy solutions, including the valorisation of downgraded dates and co-products of date production in Algeria, production of compost from by-products of the wine industry in Lebanon, and the production of biogas from organic waste on farms in Morocco.
Asia
Europe Lebanon Israel Palestine Jordan
Tunisia Morocco Algeria 2) http://www.switchmed.eu/en 3) http://www.switchmed.eu/en/documents/policy/switch-med-scp-policy-toolkit.pdf 4) http://www.switchmed.eu/en/e-library/regional-action-plan-on-sustainable-consumption-and-production-in-the-mediterranean 5) http://www.switchmed.eu/en/corners/policy-makers/actions/action-2 6) http://www.switchmed.eu/en/corners/policy-makers/actions/action-3
Egypt Africa
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