BLUE FLAG
| Partner | |
|---|---|
| LP | Municipality of Ugento |
| PP2 | Foundation for Tourism and Culture of Molise |
| PP3 | Albanian Coast Lifeguards and Water Rescue Federation |
| PP4 | Municipality of Lezha |
| PP5 | TOURISM ORGANIZATION OF ULCINJ |
A.2 Project summary
The Blue Flag Programme started in France in 1985, it is actually a world-renowned award, with an ever-increasing number of countries participating in it. The mission is to promote environmental education programmes for the users of beaches, marinas and eco-tourism boats. It challenges local authorities and marine operators to achieve high standards in the four categories of water quality,environmental management, environmental education and safety.
There is a substantial discrepancy between Italy, Albania and Montenegro concerning the standardisation of the Blue Flag, in particular on the capacity to promote and manage the criteria included. The overall objective is to increase the cooperation, the institutional capacity and partners’ governance skills in order to provide an efficient application of the Blue Flag criteria. The common challenge is to capitalize the best practices already existing in Puglia region and Molise region, boosting the further development of boating tourism and public marinas, guaranteeing, for Montenegro, a sustainable approach of those, while building a territorial policy strategy for Albania, that has no Blu Flag recognition site.
To reach all the outputs, the project will create new training opportunities, workshops and a regional action plan of the area that will represent the main innovative aspect of BLUE FLAG together with the pursuit of the DNSH principle in the implementation of activities.
The organisation of a targeted training by PP2 will also allow to transfer adequate know-how and skills to less experienced partners.
The project methodology approach emphasizes the cross-border cooperation dimension, ensuring synergies with regards to the exchange of experiences/best practices according to the level of knowledge of the partners. Particularly, less experienced local authorities and organizations (PP4 and PP5) will be supported by the other partners to easily improve their institutional capacity and governance in relation to the Blue flag.