Sfax’s Participatory Budgeting Citizen Forums

In the context of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of la Marsa organized 10 citizen forums through which the citizens participated in proposing project ideas of roads, pavement and public lightening, 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 10 citizen forums covered the whole municipal zone of Sfax, and had been organized between the 16th OF May and 7th of June 2015, respectively in the following neighborhoods : Sfax City,  Bostene City, Rbadh, Sfax north, Sidi Mansour 1, Centre Chaker 1, Habib City 1, Sidi Mansour 2, Centre Chaker 2 and Habib City 2. 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, 1698 citizens participated to present their project ideas related to roads, and to select the priority projects. The result of the organizations of the 10 citizens forums was a list of 163 project ideas of roads, pavement and public lightening. Besides,  the citizens elected 30 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 Sfax 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.