Project type                                                             Citizen Participation

Promoter                                                                 Commune Urbaine de Sousse

Start date                                                                 2013

Budget                                                                     3.512,85 million Dirhams

Given the specificity of the city of Sousse (230.000 inhabitants), in particular the complexity of the democratic transition process, they opted for an innovative methodology, which has been proven for other projects. This FDP Methodology perfectly replaces the classic SWOT as a synthesis document of analysis and diagnostic work.

For the consultation phase of the diagnosis, they used two types of working groups; the thematic groups: composed of experts and local actors specialized in a field, representatives of public administrations and civil society involved in this field and the sector groups: composed of both experts and local actors, representatives of public administrations, civil society, but also citizens represented by groups.

The consultation phase of the strategic framework has thus made it possible to define the future vision of the city, as shared by all the components: municipality, public administrations, actors and experts of the territory, civil society and citizens. This phase also made it possible to define the axes of development and the strategic objectives to be achieved, as well as the projects and the action plan to achieve them.

The urban development strategy of the city of Sousse is based on the creation of a participative diagnosis, and a shared definition of a future vision of the city. With the methodological approach five common strategic objectives were defined: social and territorial cohesion, economic, competitiveness, territorial planning, environmental management and governance and an action plan was created to lead up to the vision for Sousse 2030.

The strategy for citizen participation:
1) For the communication needs of the project, social media tools (Facebook, twitter …) and a website have been developed. While the first ones are mainly about communicating about the progress of the project and sharing documents, a participation platform has been developed at the level of the website to increase the number of citizen participants. The use of a citizen questionnaire and a Facebook page were all the information, the agenda etc. is published helped also that a great group of people could give their opinion on several themes.

2) Finally, during September-October 2014 the citizens could give their opinion about their priorities for the future development of the city in meeting points organized around the different neighbourhoods. More than 1,500 citizens could prioritize their expectations.

• 200 participants in the presentation conference of the project in 2013
• 90 participants in 4 meetings of the working groups in 2013
• 40 projects (2014-2017)
• 30 projects planned in future action plan
• Strategic Planning
• Public-private participation and involvement
• Global process of participation