On February 27th, the KTC of Sfax organized a training session for Tunisian cities of dissemination of urban development strategies.

The training was attended by representatives of nine Tunisian cities, namely Gabès, Mahdia, Monastir, Nabeul, Gafsa, Sousse, Sfax, Kairouan and Bizerte. It also had the attendance of representatives of the cities of Barcelona and Tetouan who explained their experience in developing an urban sustainable development strategy (UDS). In total, eleven cities discussed during the day on challenges and opportunities of implementing UDS for Tunisian cities.

The session started with a presentation by the international expert Josep Maria Pascual, international consultant of the UDS of Sousse, who explained why these processes are an opportunity for cities to reach a consensus among the key partners of cities to identify and implement their strategic projects. The second session was dedicated to a peer-to-peer debate in which the cities of Sousse, Sfax and Tetouan explained their experience in relation to the elaboration of UDS and how to overcome the problems that may arise during the process.

In the afternoon sessions, the representatives of municipalities exposed the main challenges linked to strategic planning in their cities. All participants agreed to collaborate in the future to find ways to launch these processes in the cities that have not participated in the USUDS  project which have not started a UDS yet. They discussed on a project proposal on this matter which is being developed by Barcelona, Sfax, Sousse, and Medcities”.

The event was chaired by M. Mabrouk Kossentini, president of the Special Delegation of Sfax and co-organized with the General Secretariat of Medcities.