A powerful cooperation network in Tunisia

ALDA has been supporting the communication between civil society, local associations and authorities in Tunisia for many years. 

ALDA Tunisia under the leadership of Solidarité Laïque gave birth to Municivile project. The project aims to contribute to the construction of an effective local democracy in Tunisia, taking into account the needs of all citizens, including the most vulnerable groups, and to strengthen the participation of Tunisian civil society in the implementation of the decentralisation process in the country.

To better do that, the project was divided into three main action fronts, each administered with the mutual cooperation of a Tunisian and a French institution: 

• Education
• Social and Solidarity Economy
• Local and participative democracy

ALDA and Scouts Tunisiens associations, coordinator of the local and participative democracy pole, established the MUNICIVIL project which designed an extensive plan of actions, focused on advocacy and capacity building to help CSOs to reach citizens, understand their needs and contribute to the construction of an inclusive and participative democracy in Tunisia. Their main actions involve:

• Trainings of Trainers (ToT) (administrative staff, elected officials and civil society actors);
• Training on local democracy and participation
• Local public consultations;
• Exchange visits between France and Tunisia
• Financing Masters studies and promoting Civic engagement of Sub Saharan Master students.

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Promoting a long lasting and durable transformation towards the reduction of inequalities, expansion of local participation and to the decentralisation process in Tunisia

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From a general perspective, PCPA trainings reached out not only CSOs involved, but also local government and educational institutions; promoting a long lasting and durable transformation towards the reduction of inequalities, expansion of local participation and to the decentralisation process in Tunisia. Significant improvements from it can already be observed:

• CSOs have increased their capacity to understand and voice the citizens’ needs, while  improving their methods on the implementation of an effective participatory democracy and enhancing their engagement in local and national decision-making process;
• Methods from the trainings have been spread to other CSOs, local government and educational institutions
• The communication and dissemination of project results have been more effective
• Tunisian and European local authorities have been progressing towards the decentralisation process by strengthening their cooperation

Yet, this is not everything. Thus, activities are still going on, focusing on:  

• The third training session for administrative staff, elected officials and civil society actors from a range of selected municipalities;
• The partnership with Faculty of political, social and juridical sciences (Faculté des sciences juridiques, politiques et sociales) of Tunis in order to fund 3 master thesis on Local Governance and related themes;
• The launch of local events on 12 different municipalities to promote civil society consultation and municipality commissions trainings;

Bear in mind that these are only a few actions developed within the PCPA’s framework and a series of other actions are expected to be put in place throughout the rest of the  year. 

To know more about Société Laïque, please visit their website: https://www.solidarite-laique.org/