From November 5^th- 8^th, 2023, in Hungary, CNVP MOVING team and representatives of the local stakeholder group participated at the conference that gathered 23 partners jointly implementing the HORIZON 2020, EU Project. Along with the project partners, representatives of various value chains were invited to provide their input but as well to share their experiences and engage in networking.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to exchange and reflect on the barriers and opportunities linked to the presence of natural sites in mountain areas, its implications for mountain value chains, and good practices from each region. In various sessions we were identifying gaps, discuss implications, and co-create recommendations for enabling environments in mountain areas, with a strong focus on the resilience and sustainability.

Joint challenges most of the regions are facing are on policy level and implementation of various policies, as well as depopulation of mountain areas and youth abandoning rural business. As much as various value chains developed diverse resilience strategies, most agreed that to build resilience of the mountains there is huge need for increasing investments in addressing already visible effects of climate change, increase investments in research and innovative approaches, diversification of the offer of the value chains.

Along with our representatives from the working group : Jasminka Pashaliska- Andonova (NGO representative, Municipality of Pehcevo) and Gjorgji Peovski (Head of LER office, Municipality of Beovo) we participated on study tour visiting local  agricultural and rural tourism value chain and we promoted selected local products from the Maleshvski Region.

CNVP North Macedonia is implementing the MOVING Horizon 2020 project with a consortium of 23 partner organizations across Europe (research centers and institutes, industry representatives, rural developers, and innovation agents). Activities in North Macedonia are focused on the Maleshevija region, eastern part of the country.