CLOSER is a Mediterranean cooperation project that helps communities and institutions design social public services that actually match local needs, especially in remote, rural, and underserved areas across Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Greece, Spain, and Italy. As well as high-pressure urban and central areas affected by migration and refugee waves, rapid population growth, and poor urban planning.
Across the Mediterranean, many territories are facing the same pressures: depopulation, aging, limited access to essential services, and growing vulnerability, at the same time, densification, overcrowding, and strained services in cities and central districts. In contexts shaped by displacement and mobility, public services often become overloaded, leaving communities more exposed to both sudden shocks and everyday life-cycle risks.
CLOSER to the People
CLOSER responds with a simple, powerful idea: solutions work best when they are built locally, by the people who live there, together with the public institutions responsible for services.
CLOSER aims to develop a new model of participatory governance to provide social services that are truly responsive to the needs of the communities they serve.
Because when decisions are made together, services are brought closer to the people.
What CLOSER Does
CLOSER connects and strengthens local proximity networks, practical partnerships between civil society, public authorities, and local stakeholders, so they can co-design services and deliver them through participatory models.
Driving the Change
Through Closer, we are building and connecting 6 local proximity networks into a dynamic cross-border alliance.
With CLOSER, we train 180 representatives from civil society organizations, public institutions, and other key stakeholders.
Local communities in Italy, Spain, Greece, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon are actively shaping and benefiting from social services, co-designed to meet their real needs.
Together, we’re strengthening social rights and improving community well-being by delivering new, inclusive services that respond to the aspirations of the people in the Mediterranean.
ARDD in CLOSER (Jordan)
In Jordan, ARDD contributes its long-standing experience in promoting inclusive, transparent, and participatory governance. Through CLOSER, ARDD supports the creation of a Jordan-based proximity network and helps translate the project’s Mediterranean learning into local action that reflects community priorities.
Consortium Partners
- Coordinator: Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci – ETS (Italy)
- EUROTraining (Greece)
- University of Alicante (Spain)
- JUHOUD for Community and Rural Development (Palestine)
- Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development – ARDD (Jordan)
- Moukhtara Municipality (Lebanon)
- University of Alicante (Spain)
- JUHOUD for Community and Rural Development (Palestine)
- Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development – ARDD (Jordan)Moukhtara Municipality (Lebanon)
Funding institution
Interreg NEXT MED
