Ben Arous’s citizen delegates forum
After the organization of the citizen forums of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of Ben Arous organized, on the 27th of August 2016, the citizen delegates forum which gathered the 12 citizen elected delegates. The role of the delegates was to sort, by priority, the projects voted by the citizens based on the Participatory Budgeting principles, specifically the principles of equity and solidarity.
The technical service of the municipality attended the forum in order to provide necessary technical and administrative information to the citizen delegates. The financial services took also part in this forum to provide the preliminary estimated cost of each project voted by the citizens, and which is technically feasible. Besides, the local facilitators of the Participatory Budgeting participated in the logistical preparation of this forum, as well as, to provide support to the citizen delegates in their work.
Based on all these pieces of information, and according to the budget allocated to the projects of the Participatory Budgeting process from the municipality of Ben Arous (1.725.000 Tunisian Dinars for the roads, pavements and embellishment of the city), the citizen delegates reached a consensus on a list of 40 projects over 48 to be implemented by the municipality. Moreover, the citizen delegates created monitoring committees in order to supervise and evaluate the implementation of the decided projects, as mentioned in the following documents.
Ben Arous’s Participatory Budgeting Citizen Forums
In the context of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of Ben Arous organized 4 citizen forums through which the citizens participated in proposing project ideas of basic infrastructure, voting for the priority projects of their neighborhoods, and electing citizens delegates whose mission is to monitor the implementation of the final list of projects.
The 3 citizen forums covered the whole municipal zone of Ben Arous, and had been organized between the 31th of July and 07th of May 2016, respectively in the following places : The municipality hall, al Foll City Elementery school, childhood palace. A communication campaign preceded the organization of the citizenforums to inform and invite the citizens to take part in the public meetings. Different kind of communication tools had been used during this campaign such as : Flyers, Posters, Banners, car loud-speaker service, radio broadcasts …
In this first year / edition of the Participatory Budgeting, 476 citizens participated to present their project ideas related to roads, and to select the priority projects. The result of the organizations of the 3 citizens forums was a list of 120 project ideas of basic infrastructure. Besides, the citizens elected 12 citizen delegates in order to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the final list of projects.
Citizen Participation Rate
The citizen forums were organized by the municipality of Ben Arous in collaboration with the local civil society organizations, which provided volunteer members to play the role of “local facilitators” of the Participatory Budgeting. These facilitators ensured, in partnership with the municipality : the implementation of the communication plan to inform and invite the citizen to participate in the citizen forums; the preparation and the organization of the citizen forums; and the support of the citizen delegates in their monitoring and evaluation mission.
Training of local facilitators on the Participatory Budgeting in Ben Arous
On the 28th of May 2016, the Associative Action organized a training session for the members of local CSOs in Ben Arous to become local facilitators of Participatory Budgeting.
The role of the local facilitators is to collaborate with the members of the local authorities to successfully implement the awareness and communication campaign aimed to invite the citizens to participate in the citizen forums of the PB, as well as to organize the citizen forums (moderating the debate between municipal officers and citizens, facilitation of the citizens work groups, organization of the voting and election process related to the citizen projects ideas and citizen delegates).
Presentation of the Participatory Diagnosis results in Ben Arous
After receiving the diagnostic sheets from the local NGOs, the Associative Action organized a meeting on February 5th, 2016 to present the results of the diagnosis to the members of the municipality and the local NGOs of Ben Arous
The table below illustrates the results of the Participatory Diagnosis for the municipality of Ben Arous:
As shown in the table, and for all areas in the municipality of Ben Arous, the estimated total cost of basic infrastructure needs in investment is equal to 21 348 672 TD divided as follows:
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of investment in roads is equal to 3 023 815 TD
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of investment in pavement is equal to 468 138 TD
– the estimated cost of investment needs in rainwater management system is equal to 16 463 000 TD
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of investment in public lighting is equal to 434 040 TD
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of investment in embellishment of the city is equal to 402 679 TD
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of cultural investment is equal to 207 000 TD
– the estimated cost of the needs in terms of sports investment is equal to 350 000 TD
The table also allows to present the results by zone (the municipality of Ben Arous was split in to 04 zones for the diagnosis).
