AERYC (Africa, America, Europa, Regiones y Ciudades) and MedCities visited Sousse for the first mission of the project from 14^th to 16^th of January 2015.

The first mission of the project had two main objectives: define the composition, objectives and functions of the Local Development Office, and to identify the groups and networks to lead and monitor the Plan.

The local team has been composed by five people, one coordinator and one responsible for each working area (sustainability and environment, mobility and transport, coordination with the Municipality of Sousse and International Relations). The team worked on the projects presented, the project sheet to present new proposals and the methodology to do the follow-up.  The commitment of the local team is to present soon the final Action Plan.

Other topics that were discussed were the role of the Local Development Office as the Observatory of Sousse and in the implementation of projects, the involvement of the members of the local team in these tasks, and the identification and management of indicators to evaluate the activity.

Afterwards, there was a presentation of the projects defined under the Sousse Development Strategy in order to identify the networking groups to promote and monitor the Plan. The local team agreed on the following groups:

a.    Oued Hamdoun

b.    Economic Promotion and Development Agency

c.    Sebkha

d.    Local Development Office

e.    New Town Hall (energy efficient and bioclimatic building)

f.     Challenges of the Sousse harbor

g.    School Integration Program

h.    Structure for the management and promotion of the Medina  

i.      Mobility

Finally, the local team distinguished between three categories of indicators:

a)    Impact indicators of the Strategic Plan,

b)    Indicators for each project,

c)    Indicators of the social organization processes

The next steps will be the organization of a seminar to present the Project and the initiatives under its framework during the month of May, and to plan the next mission to develop in order to validate the Action Plan and the structuring projects.