On February 20 and 21, AIVP visited Seville (Spain) for the first Steering Committee meeting of the European SAFARI project. This initiative, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program, aims to create a digital platform to strengthen the resilience of ports in the face of extreme climatic events. The platform will connect port communities and facilitate communication between stakeholders and infrastructures. It will include tools for managing emergency situations, as well as functionalities for operation, maintenance and data analysis relating to climatic hazards.
This meeting was an opportunity for Laureen Goletto-Project Manager and Dr. José M P Sánchez, AIVP’s Agenda 2030 Director, to discuss the evolution of port structures in the context of increasing climate change. The event brought together 5 active AIVP members in the Port of Seville: the Port of Tripoli (Lebanon), Livorno (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Dunkirk (France) and the Port of Seville.
The two-day event was an opportunity to raise stakeholders’ awareness of the best practices implemented by port authorities and their partners, to identify the most effective ways of promoting their dissemination and implementation. Discussions were fueled by the invention of Dr. Darshana Godaliyadde, Director of Port Resilience from Lloyd’s Register and coordinator of Resilience4Ports, a key AIVP partner on the subject.
The meeting had a wide range of objectives, including an overview of the challenges faced by the ports, coordination with stakeholders, presentation of the Work Packages, their progress and the next steps to be planned. It was also an opportunity to brainstorm on the strategic vision of the various partner ports and to identify their strengths and weaknesses. José M P Sánchez also had the opportunity to lead a discussion with the partner ports during a workshop on stakeholder involvement.
Very involved in the project, the host of this session allowed us to visit the historic center and its multimodal operating site. It was an opportunity to highlight, once again, the need for a close connection between the port and the city when drawing up strategic documents in the face of climatic hazards and risks.
In October, the SAFARI committee will be meeting in Livorno (Italy), to deepen exchanges between the different partners, while immersing itself in the reality of one of the replicating ports.
