Training of the citizen delegates of Ettadhamen
In order to ensure the success of the monitoring mission, the Associative Action organized, on the 3rd of February 2017, a training session for the citizen delegates of the municipality of Ettadhamen on the implementation process of the municipal projects. The technical services of the municipality as well as the local facilitators of the Participatory Budgeting attended this session.
The training presented all the administrative and on-the-ground steps related to the implementation of municipal projects. By the end of the training, every citizen delegate received a copy of a monitoring and evaluation guide of the municipal projects, edited by the Associative Action in collaboration with the technical services of the municipality.
Participatory Budgeting Inter-Municipalities seminar – 2016
The “Associative Action” organized on the 15th – 16th of December 2016 a Participatory Budgeting inter-municipalities seminar in Tunis, that gathered the 12 municipalities which successfully implemented the Participatory Budgeting process between 2104 – 2016.
The following municipalities has been invited to participate in this seminar : La Marsa, Menzel Bourguiba, Tozeur, Gabes, Sfax, la Manouba, Gafsa, Raoued, El Kef, Sbeitla, Ben Arous and Ettadhamen.
Different stakeholders attended the seminar such as the representatives of the following institutions : The Ministry of Local Affairs and Environment, the German Cooperation in Tunisia (GIZ), Caisse des Prêts et de Soutien des Collectivités Locales (CPSCL), and the Center of Training and Decentralization Support (CTDS).
The objective of the seminar is to study the differences between the Participatory Budgeting process (PB) and the Annual Investment Plan (AIP) preconized by the Ministry, as well as to propose a plan of merging both methdologies.
The representatives of the 12 participants municipalities worked on a presentation of a comparative table on the differences between the BP and the AIP, based on their experience on both mechanisms. The results are shown in the following document :
Mécanismes Participaifs_ de la transition à la durabilité
The document was presented to the representatives of the CPSCL to convince them about the drawbacks and the problems of the AIP both on the technical and design level.
It is important to note that the CSPCL still refuses to admit about the drawbacks and the problems of the AIP. Worse, the CPSCL abused of its power by sending a ‘circulaire’ ordering the municipalities to not adopt the PB anymore, otherwise, they will be prevented of their state non-affected grants (See the ‘circulaire’ of june 2017).
The Associative Action was able to adapt the activities of the PB with the AIP requirements, without shifting the main principles of the PB process. Although, our advocacy towards official authoroties is still going on about fixing the problems of the AIP.
Citizen projects’ location visit in Ettadhamen
At the end of the Citizens’ Forum series, the municipality of Ettadhamenorganized on the 28th of August 2016 a visit to the location of the projects voted by the citizens and aprouved by the technical service of the municipality for their technical and administrative feasibility.
This visit was made in the presence of the 12 elected citizen delegates, the local participatory budgeting facilitators and representatives of Ettadhamen municipality’s technical service.
This visit covered the sites of the 34 voted projects of basic infrastructure.
Ettahdamen’s citizen delegates forum
After the organization of the citizen forums of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of Ettadhamen organized, on the 29th of June 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 Ettahdamen (600.000 Tunisian Dinars for the roads, pavements and embellishment of the city), the citizen delegates reached a consensus on a list of 16 projects over 27 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.
