Santiago Castellà, director of the Tarragona Smart Mediterranean City Chair of the Roriva i Virgili University and full academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), participated in the first Mediterranean Youth Forum, which was held in Tarragona between the past 6 and 9 of July organized by the Union for the Mediterranean and the City Council of Tarragona. Castellà spoke with the paper “Climate change and sustainable development”, in which he stressed the need to apply strict and effective measures to promote sustainable development throughout the Mediterranean area, following the guidelines set by the Union for the Mediterranean.

Dr. Santiago Castellà

Dr. Santiago Castellà

Held in the framework of the Mediterranean Games, the Forum brought together some 50 representatives of organizations led by young people, platforms and networks of 30 Euro-Mediterranean nationalities to share their work, talent and ideas with a view to developing regional cooperation and projects led by young people. The meeting promoted the exchange of methodologies and good practices on regional cooperation and the development of projects in the Mediterranean, also fostering a common vision that encourages intergenerational collaboration among young people and high-level experts.

The Mediterranean Youth Forum aims to consolidate itself as a platform to promote this common work and plan concrete actions that act as reactive of a change of mentality and way of doing things as necessary, as requested by Castellà himself, in the field of environmental protection. In the Euro-Mediterranean area, young people constitute almost 60% of the population and one of the greatest assets for stability and development in the region. Their active participation with exchanges and intercultural dialogue is essential to promote the shared values ​​that the Union for the Mediterranean seeks to promote both on the north and south banks to accelerate progress towards the goals of sustainable development.