The final round table of the regional project "Engaging civil society in integrated water management in the South and East Mediterranean region" will take place in Marrakech, on 21 and 22 December 2011.

This meeting will be the last regional meeting for this project with its three national projects that have been implemented over the last three years. This round table will provide the platform for these three projects from Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia to present their achievements, results, and lessons learned to a wide regional audience.

The main objective of this round table also aims to evaluate the success of the impacts of the regional project with its national projects at different levels and to agree on a direction for the future between the partners.

In addition to the national partners of the project, the round table will also see the participation of several local, national, and regional actors who have been involved in the implementation of national programmes and/or the regional project in one way or another. Representatives of national advisory committees/steering committees will be present at the meeting with the partners leading the implementation of the project at the national level.

Also, in addition to Wetlands International, regional partners and advisors at the Mediterranean regional level will be present at the meeting, including the Tour du Valat, Global Water Partnership - Mediterranean, the MedWet secretariat, the Rhône Mediterranean Corsica Basin Agency, as well as the Mediterranean Water Institute - IME.

The round table will be based on the results from the reports of each final workshop at the national level that will take place in the three different countries. These workshops will invite a much wider national audience and will be based on their reactions to the various projects concerned by the evaluation of the project results and the future potential for replication in other places based on the lessons learned. The results of these national workshops will be contributed during the final round table where their results will be presented in order to be evaluated by the regional and national bodies present from different countries and institutes.

Due to the fact that the regional project has been ongoing for three years, it has already begun to collect the lessons learned and the achievements of the national projects. The regional project team has worked on transforming the lessons learned, while taking into consideration the current state of water resources in the Mediterranean, in order to produce a future programme concept that has already been shared and reviewed with the various national and regional partners mentioned above. The round table will be an opportunity for the various partners to meet, discuss, and agree on this concept.

Consequently, the future concept will be presented at the symposium on the future MedWet strategy on water and wetlands in the Mediterranean, which will take place in Agadir from 6 to 8 February 2012. On the other hand, the round table will take place just after the 1st Mediterranean Water Forum in Marrakech, which will take place on 19-20 December. The forum will be a main step for the Mediterranean region to present a solution for the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille from 12 to 17 March 2012.