The National Focal Points of Plan Bleu, Regional Activity Centre, met on 27 -29 May 2019 in Marseille, France, to review the progress of Plan Bleu’s work and ensure the implementation of recommendations at the national level.

The meeting agreed on the proposed Programme of Work for the biennium 2020-2021 and its further finalisation and submission to the Meeting of the Focal Points of the Mediterranean Action Plan (10-13 September 2019) and to the 21^st Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols (2-5 December 2019) for adoption.

Participating Focal Points further discussed numerous substantive areas of Plan Bleu work.

For instance, in relation to the 2019 Report on the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean (SoED 2019), they stressed the importance of the sustained communication and dissemination plan of the SoED results and their integration into national development plans.

In discussing the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD), meeting participants agreed on the need to define and develop a regional process for effective monitoring of its implementation with the involvement of relevant regional and national stakeholders and partners. This process, to be based on data and information sharing principles, should be developed in synergy with existing programmes and processes such as the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) and the under-development INFO/RAC Data Management Strategy.

 The meeting also recommended formalising the network involving national and local observatories on environmental and other sectors to encourage exchanges on data and best practices.

More information is available here