At the Interreg NEXT MED launch event in Lebanon, MEDAIGENCY highlighted how AI-enabled interventions can strengthen preparedness, response, and recovery in contexts where crises increasingly overlap across the Mediterranean.
How can innovation strengthen communities in times of crisis?
This question was at the heart of the national Interreg NEXT MED launch event in Lebanon, where MEDAIGENCY took part in the panel discussion on “Building Societal and Territorial Resilience.”
Representing MEDAIGENCY, Dr. Imad Elhajj from the Humanitarian Engineering Initiative at the American University of Beirut, addressed the growing reality of compounded emergencies across the Mediterranean; where natural disasters, economic shocks, conflict, and public health crises often occur simultaneously.
He emphasized that resilience today requires systems capable of responding to complex, overlapping shocks, not isolated events.
“The Mediterranean countries are facing increasingly compounded crises — disasters do not come one at a time. Our challenge is to better prepare, respond, and recover in contexts where multiple shocks intersect. This is precisely where MEDAIGENCY intervenes.”
Dr. Elhajj highlighted that MEDAIGENCY will develop six AI-enabled interventions designed to strengthen preparedness, response, and recovery capacities across partner countries.
A rapid context assessment conducted in Lebanon, Palestine, Türkiye, and Italy, revealed an important insight: despite different national contexts, many institutional challenges are shared, particularly in coordination, communication, and rapid needs assessment.
“We were expecting different gaps across countries. Instead, we found striking similarities in operational challenges. This gives us confidence that the solutions we develop can be scaled and adopted across multiple systems in the region.”
Beyond technological innovation, MEDAIGENCY embeds a participatory and ethics-by-design approach. Mediterranean-wide Stakeholders and Ethics Advisory Boards guide the development process, ensuring that interventions reflect real institutional needs and have clear pathways for deployment.
As an EU-funded initiative under the Interreg NEXT MED Programme, MEDAIGENCY aims to strengthen health systems resilience through transnational cooperation, responsible innovation, and participatory governance.
By aligning technology with institutional realities, the project seeks to contribute to more coordinated, adaptive, and sustainable crisis management frameworks across the Mediterranean.
Last Update
18/02/2026
Next Med