Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona

On 29 June 2017, in the presence of the president of the Féderation Nationale de Villes Tunisiennes (FNVT), Tunis Town Hall was the venue for the first conference of the Madinatouna project ‘Reinforcement and Dissemination of strategic urban planning initiatives in Tunisia' funded by Cities Alliance and coordinated by the PNUD (United Nations Development Programme), in collaboration with MedCities, German cooperation agency GIZ, the Regional Office of the International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (CILG-VNG) and the FNVT.

This project involves the development of nine strategies for sustainable urban development (Stratégies Des Villes – SDV), in the towns of Gabès, Kairouan, Sidi Bouzid, Jandouba, Monastir, Tataouine, Mednine Beja and Soukra, based on four areas: economic development; social development; urban planning and the environment.

MedCities, the network of Mediterranean cities led by the AMB, will accompany the cities of Kairouan and Gabès, providing technical support for local strategy teams and monitoring methodology.

During the event, an agreement was signed between the various parties involved—ministries, the FNVT, co-financing institutions and the municipal councils—to formalise the framework for cooperation. The subsequent speeches focused on various aspects of the project and the role assigned to each partner: the establishment of teams of local experts in the nine towns, training for trainers in strategic planning, the definition of the project's methodology for the preparation of the SDVs (a task given to MedCities) and capitalisation and dissemination.

At the end of the conference, presentations were given on three experiences of strategies implemented in towns in the Mediterranean basin—Sfax, Sousse and Tuscany—including a presentation of the working methodology adopted, the advantages gained by implementing the SDV (local leadership, capacity building, knowledge), the rate of implementation of the strategies and the challenges encountered during their implementation.