IT ALL BEGAN IN 1962...

Over the last six decades, our Organisation has been strongly devoted to enhancing multilateral cooperation in the Mediterranean. Since 1962, we strive to bring people and ideas together.

This book tells our story

For more than fifty years the CIHEAM has sailed the Mediterranean, searching for favorable winds, fighting against storms but maintaining the direction that it gave itself to establish links between Mediterranean coasts. This book tells the story of an organization set up after World War II in a world already divided into areas of influence.

Despite these unfavorable winds, the Member States who founded the CIHEAM strived to forge this vessel and accompany its journey across the Mediterranean. More than fifty years later, one must pay a tribute to those women and men, to the different crews who drove the CIHEAM, sometimes on a sea too calm to move forward, at other times on a sea too rough not to fear damage.

It is important to look back at the path pursued and observe how the initial project has taken shape. This vessel has been a real ferry plying Mediterranean coasts. Sharing knowledge, establishing a dialogue between cultures, hope and friendship, the CIHEAM has enabled exchanges and cooperation across the Mediterranean. Several generations of researchers, students and political actors have boarded this vessel or came across it during their navigation.

One must highlight the determining role of the Delegates who have succeeded over the years in representing their country on the Governing Board of CIHEAM.

While the cartography of the CIHEAM has changed, agriculture, food, and rural development have always been the cardinal points of its journey. The experience accumulated during these years allows the CIHEAM to adapt itself to contemporary challenges. After all, the political and financial context of today is no less complex than it was in 1962.