The third edition of the International Forum for Marine Spatial Planning (MSPforum) took place between 12 May - 15 May, 2019 in Vigo, Spain. The Forum was jointly organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO) under the adopted "Joint Roadmap to accelerate Maritime/Marine Spatial Planning processes worldwide", see more details: http://www.mspglobal2030.org/
The 3rd MSPforum brought to Vigo – a coastal city where maritime activities have shaped economic development for centuries - 111 participants (49% women) from 32 nationalities working in 26 different countries. The participants belonged to different categories of MSP stakeholders: governmental and intergovernmental authorities (44%), academia (43%), NGOs (3%), private sector (4%) and master students on MSP (6%). Three different Panels were organized to discuss pre-defined MSP topics: “How to do an MSP Plan”, “Data, information and tools for MSP” and “MSP transboundary synergies”.
For the Technical Workshops, participants were divided into roundtables to share their own practical experiences and knowledge about the topic discussions that started in each panel. At the end of the rounds, they had to summarize their findings in key messages to be shared with the plenary, which are presented in the full MSPforum report.
Following the successful implementation of engagement activities with local stakeholders in the 2nd MSPforum in La Reunión, the 3rd edition in Vigo, Spain also included in its Agenda a full day dedicated to meeting local stakeholders, creating a space for representatives of maritime sectors in the forum in order to complement the discussions that professional planners were having during the event. With the support of the Port Authority of Vigo, stakeholder visits were scheduled with 17 different groups of stakeholders. Each group, some accompanied by an invited local stakeholder, reported their findings to all participants. The presentations focused on a description of the maritime sector/activity, the stakeholder group’s perspective about MSP and suggestions to improve the link between the visited sector and MSP. To improve interaction and dissemination, participants shared their experiences on Twitter throughout the day, with the #MSPforum and #MSPglobal hashtags.
The CCMS Director Dr Margarita Stancheva took active participation as speaker at the panel “Data, information and tools for MSP”, as rapporteur at the Technical Workshop 1: Identifying good practices for MSP implementation at national and transboundary scale, Step 4: Engaging stakeholders in each step and in the group Shipyards for meeting local stakeholders (See the photos below and PPT on Shipyards: http://www.mspglobal2030.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/MSPforum_Vigo_StakeholderVisits_Shipyards.pdf).
Dr. Margarita Stancheva speaking at the discussion panel (both photos down)
Photo credit (collage): http://www.mspglobal2030.org/msp-forum/vigo/
The full report, photos and presentations of the MSPforum in Vigo, Spain are available on the MSPglobal website http://www.mspglobal2030.org/msp-forum/vigo/.