With the finalisation of USUDS project, MedCities has embarked into the task of consolidating the results of the project, especially with regards to the structures of the Knowledge Transfer Centres.

• 

As a result, a new project for the “Consolidation of the KTCs of Sfax and Al Fayhaa” has been approved, with co-financing from the Municipality of Barcelona and the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. 

The project foresees an enhanced role for the KTCs as regional antennas of the MedCities Network in the Maghreb and Mashreq areas respectively, and under the methodological coordination of the KTC of Malaga, which will continue its work with the funding of the Municipality of Malaga.

This enhanced role of the KTCs is the result of the implementation of USUDS project and the need it created for a strong decentralised structure. Such a structure would allow MedCities to promote strategic urban planning and to focus on the implementation of strategic projects in these two regions, from which many new cities recently joined the network.

The role of the KTCs is twofold: on one hand, to act as the focal point of the network in the country, by maintaining a permanent contact with the cities members in order to identify their needs for intervention and collaboration; on the other, to accompany the local governments in the process of strategically thinking the city by initiating new strategic plans, identifying strategic projects and accompanying them in the search for funding.

The project begins in December with a training workshop for the personnel of the KTC and the municipal staff linked to the project and will continue throughout 2015 with activities which include:

1. The review and follow of strategic plans of selected cities and their implementation through MedCities methodology: identification of alternative projects, writing “business plans” for projects, etc.
2. The organization of a regional seminar on the dissemination of strategic thinking and tools to foster the implementation of projects.
3. The identification of best practices and cases of interest, participation in discussions of the platform and in the creation of content of the MedCities website.
4. The creation of a bank of experts in urban development in the field of action of the KTC.
5. The dissemination of calls for projects and the support of the cities on the network for drafting Concept Notes and application forms of Projects.

For more information on the KTCs and contact details, please visit the pages KTC Alfayhaa and KTC Sfax.