MedCities and the Municipality of Tunis, are elaborating the City Development Strategy of Tunis (CDS) in the frame of the A’SIMA Tunis project. Having finalised the diagnosis phase, the CDS of Tunis recently launched the strategic framework phase of the project, which is aimed at determining the cities’ vision on the long term, the mission of the CDS, as well as its strategic axes.

A public conference will take place on December 14, at the Tunis City Hall, in order to officially present the process to actors from different activity sectors of the city (civil society organisations, local administration, private sector…) and gather their views on what should be the city’s main priorities and projects for the future. One of the main goals of the conference is also to promote this strategic and collective thinking process led by the Tunis City Council, and invite all types of actors to actively engage in the elaboration of the CDS.

In the meantime, in order to kick-start the Strategic Framework phase with its project partners; MedCities organised on November 24 and 25 a two-day in-person training with the methodological expert of the project, addressed at the CDS team members in Tunis. The trainings objectives were to explain the transition from the diagnosis results’ to the Strategic Frame, to start designing the main strategic objectives and axes and to understand the mechanisms for participation and consultation at this stage of the CDS.  Between 15 and 18 people participated in the session: CDS experts, Tunis city technical directors and elected members of the CDS municipal commission. Overall, this training is part of the activities to build the Municipality of Tunis capacities on the process of local strategic planning.

In order to understand the current situation and define the desired scenario for the vision of the city and its strategic priorities, it is important to have concrete city-indicators on different aspects of local planning: mobility, pollution, waste, social inclusion etc. To support this process, MedCities and the Municipality of Tunis have been working with consultants to produce the “Baseline study on sustainable urban development indicators in the Grand Tunis”. This baseline study recollects over 300 available indicators that provide information on the situation of the city concerning the SDGs and their goals. The report was officially presented and approved by the municipality’s technical staff on November 17 and should be useful in the next steps of the CDS, especially in defining the indicators of the strategic plan.