The Mediterranean does not need to start from zero.
Across the region, countries and partners have tested solutions, built tools, strengthened institutions and generated knowledge through the GEF-supported MedProgramme. The question now is how that experience can continue to deliver impact beyond the Programme’s final phase.
The Tunis Call for Action, adopted on 25 June 2026 at the final Annual Stocktaking Meeting of the MedProgramme in Tunis, provides that direction. It is a country-driven call to carry the MedProgramme legacy forward through replication, investment readiness, stronger partnerships, knowledge exchange and continued Mediterranean cooperation.
The Call recognises the Mediterranean Sea as a shared ecosystem of global importance and acknowledges the MedProgramme as a pioneering multi-partner and multi-domain initiative. Through GEF support, the Programme connected action across International Waters, Chemicals and Waste, Biodiversity, and Climate Change Adaptation, demonstrating that pollution reduction, water security, coastal resilience, biodiversity conservation, sustainable coastal development, and environmental governance are part of one shared Mediterranean future.
Sabria Bnouni, Tunisia GEF Focal Point, presents the Tunis Call for Action, adopted in Tunis as a shared pathway for carrying the MedProgramme legacy forward.
Photo by MedProgramme.
The Tunis Call for Action now turns that experience into a pathway.
Its first message is strategic: the MedProgramme legacy should be scaled up through a Mediterranean Replication and Upscaling Portfolio, owned by countries and adequately resourced. This portfolio is intended to consolidate and expand successful solutions, tools, policies and approaches at national level and across the region. It would help ensure that results do not remain isolated achievements, but become usable models for future action.
Its second message is practical: nationally defined priorities, including regional activities, should be transformed into investment-ready actions. The Call asks for robust project pipelines, financing strategies and bankable programmes capable of attracting public, private and blended finance. This is one of its most important shifts. It moves the discussion from what has been achieved to what can be prepared, financed and implemented next.
To support that shift, the Call invites UNEP/MAP and associated partners to promote a Mediterranean Environmental Investment Platform. The purpose is to mobilise financial institutions, development banks, donors, climate and biodiversity funds, philanthropic organisations and the private sector, and to advance innovative financing mechanisms and partnerships that can accelerate replication and scaling across the Mediterranean.
The Call also reinforces the integrated approaches that shaped the MedProgramme. It invites partners to advance Source-to-Sea approaches, the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus, Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Marine Spatial Planning, climate adaptation and mitigation, sustainable blue economy initiatives and nature-based solutions. These approaches matter because Mediterranean pressures do not arrive separately. Pollution, water stress, biodiversity loss, climate risk and coastal development affect the same ecosystems, communities and economies.
Knowledge is central to this transition. The Tunis Call recognises the national expertise and institutional capacity strengthened through the MedProgramme and calls for continued exchange, innovation and capacity development. It also places gender equality, youth engagement, inclusive participation, environmental education, awareness raising and communication at the centre of future cooperation.
This is what makes the Call relevant beyond one programme cycle. It does not present replication as a technical exercise only. It recognises that scaling solutions requires countries that own the priorities, partners that can support implementation, institutions that can carry knowledge forward, and financing pathways that can turn tested ideas into action.
For the GEF International Waters community, the Tunis Call offers a clear example of how a regional programme can move from demonstration to scale. It shows how integrated work on water, pollution, biodiversity, coastal resilience, finance, knowledge and governance can be organised into a shared pathway for future investment and cooperation.
The Call is not a new beginning from zero. It is a way to use what has already been built.
The MedProgramme provides the proof. Countries provide the priorities. UNEP/MAP provides the platform. The Tunis Call for Action provides the pathway to scale.
About the project
The Mediterranean Sea Programme (MedProgramme) is a Global Environment Facility-funded initiative implemented by UNEP and EBRD together with partners, supporting Mediterranean countries to address environmental challenges through integrated, multi-sectoral approaches across water, biodiversity, climate change and pollution.
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Related content: MedProgramme Knowledge Management Platform: https://medprogramme.unepgrid.ch/
Words by Ivana Popovic.
Thumbnail by Maverick Ocean/Unsplash.