Formalization of the Participatory Budgeting process in the municipality of Sfax
Following the first experience of the municipality of Sfax in the implementation of the Participatory Budgeting process, and for the sustainability and continuity of this process, a meeting between members of the municipality of Sfax and representatives of the “Associative Action” organization took place in January 2016, during which, it was presented the guide of the Participatory Budgeting.
This guide was developed by the experts of the “Action Associative”.
Citizen projects’ location visit in Sfax
At the end of the Citizens’ Forum series, the municipality of Sfax organized on the 12th of June 2015 a visit to the location of the projects voted by the citizens and approuved by the technical service of the municipality for their technical and administrative feasibility.
This visit was made in the presence of the 30 elected citizen delegates, the local participatory budgeting facilitators and representatives of Sfax municipality’s technical service.
This visit covered the sites of the 30 voted projects of raods, pavements and public lightening .
Sfax’s citizen delegates forum
After the organization of the citizen forums of the Participatory Budgeting process, the municipality of Sfax organized, on the 12th of June 2015, the citizen delegates forum which gathered the 30 citizen elected delegates. The role of the delegates was to sort, by priority, the 30 projects of roads, public lightening and city embellishment 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 Sfax (3.000.000 Tunisian Dinars for the roads, pavements and city embellishment), the citizen delegates reached a consensus on a list of 25 projects over 30 to be implemented by the municipality. Moreover, the citizen delegates created monitoring committees in order to supervise and evaluate the implementation of the 4 decided projects, as mentioned in the following documents.
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.
