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Kasserine, Tunisia:
Open Cities for All — Integrating
the Youth in the City
For the urban youth, who constitute the majority of the
urban population in Tunisia’s poor neighborhoods, the promise of a better
life in the city often rings hollow. Lacking adequate training and skills
to access gainful employment, they are denied the opportunities to realize
their ambitions. To address this challenge, the UMP and the FNVT (Fédération
Nationale des Villes Tunisiennes) organized a city consultation in Kasserine,
a medium size city facing severe economic development problems, aimed at
strengthening the capacity of the municipality to develop and implement
strategies targeting young urban citizens. The municipality played a leading
role in the consultation process through an Enlarged Municipal Team (EME),
composed of municipal council members and staff, NGO and government representatives,
UMP experts and six youth, three men and three women, from three impoverished
neighborhoods. This team was responsible for implementing the consultation
process, mobilizing community residents and coordinating with local stakeholders.
The process consisted of a series of consultative meetings, complemented
by a participatory diagnostic, and a final formal event during which the
action plan was adopted.
Results
• The creation of a Municipal Youth Office (planned)
• The creation of a Municipal Council of the Youth (planned)
• The creation of a community resource center for the
youth (through a grant from Japanese Cooperation), which will act as the
main node in a network of neighborhood-based and youth-managed centers.
Its role will be to inform youth about existing opportunities, link them
up with the private sector and existing government programs, train neighborhood
youth mediators, and provide space for socio-cultural activities
• The mobilization of national and regional resources
for the youth, to support the creation of neighborhood-based youth associations
and their projects as well as income or employment generating micro initiatives
• The creation of a budget line in the municipal budget
specifically dedicated to participatory projects
Follow up
Despite using a gender-aware methodology, the city consultation
process did not yield satisfactory solutions to address the special needs
of poor young women. Kasserine’s municipal team is now focusing its attention
on addressing the gender challenge in order to ensure that their actions
benefit young women and men equally. Efforts are also focused on ensuring
that the young men and women remain mobilized and acquire the necessary
skills to manage associations. French financing has been mobilized to organize
a field study tour to introduce youth mediators from Kasserine to the activities
of their peers in marginalized French neighborhoods.
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