Beja’s Participatory Budgeting Citizen Forums
In the context of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of Beja organized 2 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 2 citizen forums covered the whole municipal zone of Beja, and had been organized on the 2nd and the 3rd of September 2017, respectively in the following places : OmniSport Sport Hall and the Municipality Hall. 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, 53 citizens participated to present their project ideas related to roads, and to select the priority projects. The result of the organizations of the 2 citizens forums was a list of 15 project ideas of basic infrastructure. Besides, the citizens elected 16 citizen delegates in order to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the final list of projects.
Citizen Participation Rate
Training of the citizen delegates of Béjà
In order to ensure the success of the monitoring mission, the Associative Action organized, on the 8th of Fberuary 2018, a training session for the citizen delegates of the municipality of Béjà 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 local facilitators seminar – 2017
On the 20th & 21st of January 2017, the “Associative Action” organized a sharing experiences’ seminar for the local facilitators of the municipalities of Ariana, Monastir, Sidi Bouzid, Gremda, Béjà & Zaghouan, who contributed to the implementation of the Participatory Diagnosis as well as the Participatory Budgeting process in their municipalities.
This seminar was a good opportunity for the local facilitators to exchange experiences with each other, assess the results achieved in each city, and work out a plan to ensure the sustainability of the process.
Citizen projects’ location visit in Béjà
At the end of the Citizens’ Forum series, the municipality of Béjà organized on the 3rd of Décember 2017 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 16 elected citizen delegates, the local participatory budgeting facilitators and representatives of Béjà municipality’s technical service.
This visit covered the sites of the 15 voted projects of basic infrastructure.
