Solve the Challenge 2025 Awareness Campaign:
How can Good Governance Help Protect our Natural Heritage?
Environmental Governance:
A Well-Governed Mediterranean for a Secured Future
The Solve the Challenge 2025 campaign, part of the Interreg Euro-MED Natural Heritage Mission, launches this July to highlight the urgent need for inclusive, transparent, and collaborative environmental governance in the Mediterranean. Through engaging stories, interactive tools, and cross-border events, we aim to foster a Mediterranean dialogue and build capacity for shared stewardship to ensure the protection of our Natural Heritage.
But… What is Governance?
When hearing this word, we can easily be confused if we try to explain its meaning. In fact, there is no single and simple definition. Governance is an evolving, broad and multifaceted concept and attempting to define it presents a significant challenge.
In their International Encyclopedia of Civil Society (2023)*, Paula Chies Schommer and Florencia Guerzovich define governance as follows:
Collaborative governance is a process through which multiple stakeholders mutually engage and negotiate values, meaning, and resources to address problems or carry out a public purpose that could not be achieved by individual actors alone. It is a collective action process that enables commitment, coordination, and cooperation among elites and nontraditional political actors, such as citizens and marginalized groups. It is grounded on different opinions, consensus building, and social learning in contexts where power is often asymmetrical. It does not entail harmonization of interests, homogeneity of values, or the elimination of disagreements among diverse participants, and it is opposed to collusion, capture, and cooptation.
During the launch of our campaign, we asked our community members what environmental governance meant for them in three words.
[ Environmental Governance seen by our Community of Practice ]
We can see that “protection” is the most-cited word, followed by sustainability and cooperation. Responsibility is also cited in different ways.
You can hear from some of our institutional partners about this concept in the following video.
Why does Good Governance Matter for our Natural Heritage?
Driven by EU frameworks such as the European Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Mediterranean urgently requires governance models that enable stakeholders to co-design, co-monitor, and co-manage environmental action. Environmental challenges in the Mediterranean do not recognize national borders. The health of our ecosystems depends on coordinated action between governments, local communities, scientists, businesses, and civil society.
Good governance ensures that these actors can work together to manage natural resources sustainably, transparently and equitably. When decision-making is participatory and inclusive, policies are better adapted to real needs and more likely to gain public support. When responsibilities are shared and clearly defined, implementing environmental measures becomes more efficient and accountable. This way, governance becomes a powerful tool for preserving our seas, coasts, forests, biodiversity, and cultural landscapes. Maximize involvement, optimize results!
How does our Campaign Work?
Solve the Challenge 2025 brings these principles to life by showcasing a series of innovative activities and tools designed to inspire, connect, and empower. We will try to illustrate how the multiplicity and uniqueness of local governance models can inspire larger-scale governance for a resilient Mediterranean. Among our key activities, you will find:
Inspiring storytelling
Local communities across the Mediterranean are collaborating to protect and restore biodiversity, highlighting local challenges and community-led solutions.
Expert insight
Concrete examples from our Thematic Projects include WE GO COOP and its wetland contracts, LocAll4Flood and its participatory flood governance model, COASTRUST and its stewardship agreements for marine and coastal conservation, GreenList4MMPAs and its criteria and indicators to assess governance quality in Mediterranean MPAs. Additionally, TREASURE and its ecosystem collaboration tools illustrate how co-governance is already making an impact.
Live events
→ July: campaign launch in Athens during the Community of Practice annual gathering, organising a flagship event featuring an interactive session to collectively debunk the Governance concept and interpret its meaning for our Mission.
→ November: campaign closure in Barcelona during the annual institutional dialogue. It will be a high-level gathering combining policy discussions with on-the-ground engagement.
Everyone has a role to play in building better governance for conserving our Natural Heritage in our shared mission!
Check our past campaigns.
*Schommer, P.C., Guerzovich, F. (2023). Collaborative Governance. In: List, R.A., Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9519-1
