The fifth Steering Committee of the A’SIMA Tunis project took place in Tunis on the 5^th of October. The meeting, gathering 32 participants, aimed to discuss and validate the Action Plan of Tunis City Strategy. This key document is made of project sheets, each one describing a strategic project to implement in the short, medium, or long term. Within the framework of the elaboration of the City Strategy, the Action Plan represents a crucial step towards its implementation as it defines concrete projects to enable the territory of Greater Tunis to become further inclusive and resilient from an environmental, urban, economic and social perspective, in line with the 2030 Agenda.

In total, there are 49 strategic projects, divided into 6 different strategic thematic areas, namely:

• Thematic area 1: Attractiveness, influence and economic innovation for the metropolis.
• Thematic area 2: Rehabilitation, articulation and valorisation of the central axis, the capital’s urban backbone and a place of collective symbolic appropriation.
• Thematic area 3: Socio-economic integration and territorial inclusion, articulation, vitalization and animation.
• Thematic area 4: Resilience and eco-responsibility of the territory
• Thematic area 5: Efficiency, transparency and accountability of territorial governance.
• Thematic area 6: Integrated and sustainable urban mobility.

Participants had an interesting discussion on the strategic projects that were presented. They validated these projects with minor changes and discussed the governance field that is still to be finalized with relevant stakeholders.

This activity is also related to Component 3 of the A’SIMA Tunis on developing partnerships between Tunis and other cities to enable an exchange of best practices. In the months to come, Tunis will work on implementing the strategic projects of the Action Plan, including thanks to the support of its partners. In this context, Barcelona, Toulouse (France) and Chengdu (China) were identified as potential partners whose experience could inspire Tunis in different strategic projects.

With Barcelona, the cooperation framework was initiated months ago on the management of green public spaces in the city. The General Secretary of Tunis met representatives from Barcelona city hall to further investigate the issue in the context of his participation in the Barcelona study visit of the HERA project on 24-26 October. The General Secretary participated, among others, in the meetings and visits that introduced Barcelona Nature Plan 2021-2023, the sustainable urban drainage systems planning and management in Barcelona, and initiatives for the promotion of green private spaces in the city. Within A’SIMA, since the cooperation between the 2 cities will focus on green spaces and the promotion of community gardens, the General Secretary met with a team dedicated to city parks and gardens from the Barcelona city hall and had the opportunity to visit several community gardens.

Concerning Toulouse, an online meeting was organized on the 3^rd of October between representatives from the city halls of Toulouse and Tunis to elaborate a collaboration framework. They decided to focus their partnership on climate change, that is to say on the Thematic area 5 of the A’SIMA Tunis project: Resilience and eco-responsibility of the territory. Environmental planning, the creation of cool urban spaces or the city energy transition are among the strategic projects they can build their partnership on. As for Chengdu, the partnership would be facilitated thanks to Metropolis, a pivotal partner of the project in this activity, as Chengdu is a member of its network. A preliminary meeting was organized on the 13th of October between MedCities and Metropolis in order to lay the foundations for this potential partnership.