Gafsa’s Participatory Budgeting Citizen Forums
In the context of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of la Marsa organized 5 citizen forums through which the citizens participated in proposing project ideas of roads and pavement, 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 5 citizen forums covered the whole municipal zone of Gafsa, and had been organized between the 23th OF May and 7th of June 2015, respectively in the following neighborhoods : Gafsa Center, Chabeb City 1 et 2, Nouhoudh City, Kawafel City, Zarouk, Nour City, Ben Younes City, Sourour City, Afran, Mouala and Ras ElKef. A communication campaign preceded the organization of the citizen forums 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, 582 citizens participated to present their project ideas related to roads, and to select the priority projects. The result of the organizations of the 5 citizens forums was a list of 47 project ideas of roads and pavement. Besides, the citizens elected 20 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 Gafsa 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.
