After the Steering Committee approved Tunis City Strategy in October, the stakeholders of the A’SIMA Tunis project gathered on the 9th of November in the city hall of Tunis to discuss the various options in order to ensure its implementation and continuity over time. The event gathered several ministries, the representatives of two governorates as well as relevant stakeholders such as the Grand Tunis Urban Agency or the Regional Development General Commissariat.

The action plan of Tunis City Strategy includes project sheets, each one describing a strategic project to implement in the short, medium, or long term to enable the territory of Greater Tunis to become further inclusive and resilient, in line with the 2030 Agenda.

During the workshop that gathered 39 participants, Mr. Hicham Kasmi, Head of the major projects division and monitoring of delegated management in Tetouan (Morocco) shared the experience of his city as he had been involved in the elaboration of the past municipal action plans. Although both cities have different features, this experience sharing proved to be particularly relevant and interesting for Tunis, especially regarding the mechanisms implemented by the Moroccan city to ensure the achievement of the designed strategic projects and the related impacts on the city. Funding and the articulation between the action plans and the urban planning strategies were also discussed.

In the ensuing presentations, Tunis City Strategy experts introduced different potential structures to ensure the implementation and follow-up of the strategy, namely:

1. A municipal department: a technical service of the municipality dedicated to the implementation of Tunis City Strategy;

2. A management body which would be out of the Municipality and under direction of a decentralized state body;

3. A local development agency: a structure that would be external to the municipality.

For each type, they detailed the competencies and operational modalities that would be needed for their creation and the participants worked on identifying the constraints and opportunities for each of the possible structures as well as the profiles and resources necessary. This workshop was an initial exercise to identify potential structures and the best option according to the stakeholders, further concertation will take place in the months to come.

On the previous day, Tunis municipality met with the expert from Tetouan and the social expert of Tunis City Strategy so they could discuss the social aspects of both city strategies. In particular, Mr Kasmi introduced the experience of his city, highlighting the progressive social inclusion of peripheral districts, the promotion of green areas, and the sources of funding. This exchange was fruitful for Tunis which took note of the projects developed by the Moroccan city in this theme.