ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) Annual high-level conference "Mediterranean Dialogues," or MED 2019, will take place in Rome from December 5-7, bringing together heads of states, foreign ministers, UN officials and academia from a broader Mediterranean region to discuss political, social and economic challenges it is facing.
The event is co-organized by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and has been taking place since 2015. It claims to have four priorities or pillars: Shared Prosperity, which is political stability and enabling business environment; Shared Security, which is ending conflicts, fighting terrorism and helping with post-conflict transition; Migration, which is alignment of countertrafficking policies and respect to human rights and Civil Society and Culture.
This year, the conference will be attended by prime minister of Malta, president of Chad, ministers of foreign affairs of Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya and others. Moreover, the incumbent and former UN special envoys for Syria, UN special representative and head of the support mission in Libya, and secretary general of the Arab League are expected to attend.
The first day of the conference will see nine closed-doors fora: the Cooperation Forum, Policy Planners Forum, the Women Forum, the Youth Forum, the Business Forum, the Think Tanks Forum, the Migration Forum, and the Forum on Illicit Trafficking. Separately, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) will hold the Annual Conference on Water Investment and Financing.
On Friday and Saturday, MED 2019 will hold parallel sessions and "special dialogues". For example, special sessions on Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libyan crisis, terrorism, climate change and energy security are envisaged in the program.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio will open the second day of the conference, while Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will address it on the final day.
