Action plan – Regueb, Tunisia, 2021 – 2023

At-a-Glance

Duration

April 2023

Date Submitted

30th August 2021

Foreword(s)

Since the start of its mandate in June 2018, the current municipal council has made concerted efforts to establish a new approach to manage public affairs at the municipality level which brings together all local affairs stakeholders, including citizens, associations, specialists, and the media, to enhance citizens participation in local governance challenges, planning, budget, infrastructure, and improvement of municipal performance. Based on the opinions, suggestions, and aspirations of citizens from the current administration, it was found that a large segment was dissatisfied with the traditional way in which the municipality is run. This is why the municipality has indicated its interest in joining the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) in order to correct the existing anomalies in traditional mechanisms across departments and ensure that citizens who are the ultimate stakeholders are willing to decide how their resources are used. This initiative mainly aims to ensure the serious commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... of its constituent parties to enhance transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More and public accountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More, fight corruption and involve citizens in decision-making, within the framework of boosting its local development plan which includes economic flexibility, social justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi..., and citizen welfare. The municipality developed its new plan through a collaborative and participatory approach that included civil society organizations, citizens, government officials, and other non-governmental development actors. This approach has resulted in more coherent synergies that will be critical in the implementation phase of this project. We recognize that even if our business plan is ambitious, there will be challenges that this administration along with its partners will seek to address proactively. This action plan which is rooted in the belief that engaging productively with actors outside of government will help the current council find and implement solutions to the most pressing problems our municipality faces.

Open Government Challenges, Opportunities and Strategic Vision

This subsection details the Open Government Strategic Vision in your local area that should guide the commitments for the action plan period.

What is the long-term vision for open government in your context and jurisdiction?

Since the beginning of this administration mandate, we have started implementing several open government initiatives, including increasing financial transparency and adopting new mechanisms to enhance citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More. The municipality of Regueb considers the local platform of the Open Government Partnership a tool to promote its reform initiatives as follows:

• Use to good advantage the open government approach to solve problems that affect the improvement of the quality of citizens’ life, with a focus on developing the quality of services provided and improving infrastructure.
• Enhance trust between the municipality and the citizen and establish a dynamic for joint creation and collaborative work between the administration and civil society as a driving force for innovation to facilitate administrative processes.
• Increase fiscal sustainability using financial openness to increase taxPlacing transparency, accountability, and participation at the center of tax policy can ensure that burdens are distributed equitably across society. Technical specifications: Commitments related to c... revenue by broadening the tax base and taxpayer compliance.
• Improve ease of doing business and economic recovery by facilitating the participatory planning process for economic development planning.
• create an indicator of adopting a governance model based on the principles of transparency and participatory democracy to attract foreign investment and international cooperation.

These will be the main drivers of the measures included in the action plan.

What are the achievements in open government to date (for example, recent open government reforms)?

Since 2015, the municipal administration has launched several measures to establish the principles of the OGP including participatory decision-making, service development, and transparent and accountable management. More specifically, interventions include:

• Enhance citizens’ participation in decision-making to improve the quality of public services through the creation of a citizen’s space that allows each one of them to present its opinions and suggestions regarding the quality of services to assess the population’s satisfaction levels with the services provided by public utility service providers. This evaluation was used to involve the municipality service providers in many training courses and municipal forums to develop cost-effectiveness and improve the quality of services provided.
• In 2016, the annual program of participatory municipal investment was launched on an annual and permanent basis, to involve citizens in municipal work to identify priority projects for each residential neighborhood and each rural area according to their specificities, with the contributions and supervision of civil society organizations.
• Establish a new office charged with access to information and the review of complaints to facilitate and expedite the process of responding to citizens’ demands, and protection of whistleblowers.
• Establish a municipal Data Portal to publish all data related to the budget, the completed and proposed projects to add transparency to the municipal work.

What are the current challenges/areas for improvement in open government that the jurisdiction wishes to tackle?

In Regueb municipality, we are already working towards achieving open government, but we aim to make it more open. Our organization has already developed open government plans that highlight the following areas of improvement:

• The municipality’s transparency portals are in good condition; However, we need to move forward with regard to access to information and speed up the process of responding to citizens’ demands because their satisfaction motivates their participation in public life.
• involving citizens in decision-making, enhancing trust between the municipality and residents, and cooperation between the public and private sectors, which helps create discussion and proposals about the approved initiatives and public policies, through the creation of spaces and mechanisms that promote easy interaction and development effective participation. Involving all parties and societal groups, moving forward in a mixed model in which formal and informal participation coexist and complement each other, and developing effective channels and mechanisms to improve public quality of life, are the challenges that our institutions wish to address.
• We also seek to develop an integrated digital service, which will be a portal available to all citizens so that anyone can deal with the administration via the Internet, directly or through the citizen space service staff, which makes us more susceptible to transparent and effective communication.

What are the medium-term open government goals that the government wants to achieve?

The medium-term open government objectives of the city are as follows:

• Develop an open municipal government ecosystem that can serve as a model for coordinating and advancing open government reforms. The goal is to engage citizens in decision-making processes, get them involved in managing city challenges, and provide needed information to the active citizens who live and work in our city.
• Enhance the city’s financial openness by expanding the approved financial system that shows the city’s expenditures and how citizens’ resources are distributed to promote participation and accountability. Additionally, we want to unlock all possible revenue-related information as well.
• Establish a dynamic for joint creation and cooperative work between the administration and civil society to promote investment in the region, as the municipality made use of space for companies and cooperation agreements with civil society and foreign donors.
• Establish a remote processing system to speed up administrative work, the municipal administration has gone ahead with the gradual implementation of digitization of the administration and adopted digital systems for internal communications that are made on paper with the aim of facilitating interaction with citizens.

How does this action plan contribute to achieve the Open Government Strategic Vision?

To take advantage of the current administration’s desire to open an open government action plan and contribute to the strategic vision by including the following commitment:

To form an interactive relationship with citizens, adopting an electronic system through which citizens are involved in decision-making, setting up municipal projects, and following up on their implementation, in addition to reporting violations and violations.

How does the open government strategic vision contribute to the accomplishment of the current administration’s overall policy goals?

The strategic vision of the open government contributes to achieving the city’s joint development plan and enhancing trust between the municipality and the citizen by establishing open governance principles that can have an impact on the economic and social development of the city and improve the quality of services.

In the current development plan, the municipality seeks to establish transparency and create dynamism for joint creation and collaborative work. In addition to digitizing and simplifying administrative services and procedures, participatory work aims to increase the trust and ease of businesses, small and large, in the city.

Additionally, the development agenda has detailed the need to make significant progress in achieving the Sustainable Development GoalsOGP countries are experimenting with open government innovations to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 16+ which includes peaceful, just and inclusive societies.... The open government vision will directly support all active citizens through the establishment of a complaints mechanism and a participatory platform to improve service delivery especially hygiene and infrastructure.

Engagement and Coordination in the Open Government Strategic Vision and OGP Action Plan

Please list the lead institutions responsible for the implementation of this OGP action plan.

• Mayor’s Office
• Technical department
• Committee on Participatory Democracy and Open Governance

What kind of institutional arrangements are in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments to implement the OGP action plan?

The internal steering committeeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... of the Open Government Partnership in the municipality is the executive body for the collaborative creation process and follow-up of the action plan. Decisions are made unanimously. Some of its functions include:

• Address issues related to participation, especially the participation of other government agencies.
• Develop and sustain internal and external communication channels regarding the work plan implementation process.
• Follow the implementation of the action plan.
• Develop a training initiative, workshops, and training public officials.

This steering committee is responsible for coordinating and communicating with CSOs and other relevant departments with their participation in the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive..., as well as implementing the commitments they lead or contribute to. It will meet quarterly to assess the progress and communicate needs within the institution.

What kind of spaces have you used or created to enable the collaboration between government and civil society in the co-creation and implementation of this action plan? Mention both offline and online spaces.

The following framework was created to participate in the creation, coordination, and implementation of the action plan in the city:

• The Steering Committee that includes members of civil society (the OGP driver in the city) is responsible for the development of the action plan, organizational model, implementation procedures, defining the dissemination and communication plan, and implementing results monitoring.
• The Participatory Investment Program is a broader deliberative space that includes a greater number of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Those involved in the investment program actively participate in the creation, implementation, and monitoring of commitments. The investment program has an administrative and technical committee consisting of a general clerk, technicians, and facilitators who act as liaisons between other government parties and the citizen under the supervision of civil society organizations.

What measures did you take to ensure diversity of representation (including vulnerable or marginalized populations) in these spaces?

To ensure diversity of representation in these spaces, we have developed comprehensive communication plans to reach all groups. It will be done by opening participation through the official website of the municipality and sending official invitations to all civil society organizations and other government parties, as well as creating contact points in neighborhoods and public spaces to ensure broader participation of all citizens. In addition, the selection process for civil society organizations that are part of the investment program included representation of women’s associations and persons with disabilities.

The Steering Committee issued more than 50 invitations to organizations and individuals to participate in the investment program according to diversity of age, genderOGP participating governments are bringing gender perspectives to popular policy areas, ensuring diversity in participatory processes, and specifically targeting gender gaps in policies to address gov... More, urban and rural, neighborhood, public and private citizens, and it was published as a proposal on the municipality’s website for citizen engagement.

Who participated in these spaces?

The objective of the Participatory Investment Program is to hold deliberative forums related to creating spaces for the exchange of proposals to produce new inputs to define commitments which will provide discussion with more depth and pluralism of voices based on the perspective of the citizens.

Sectors represented: Neighborhood citizens, rural immigrants, and community organizations.

Dynamic: change the session space to produce a comprehensive diagnosis and identify the main topics rated by citizens (input for further commitment).

A total of 456 people participated in the co-creation process. The composition was as follows:

• Representatives of civil society organizations – 11
• Online Questions – 92
• Total government participants 5
• Participants in deliberative councils (not affiliated with an institution) – 257
• Workshop participants (not affiliated with an institution) – 76
• Academic Participants (Network or Institution) – 7
• Private SectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More – 8

How many groups participated in these spaces?

20

How many public-facing meetings were held in the co-creation process?

7

How will government and non-governmental stakeholders continue to collaborate through the implementation of the action plan?

Within the annual investment program sessions, Commitments working committees will be established to coordinate and cooperate in the implementation of each Commitment. The working committees will meet every three months to plan activities, coordinate roles among implementing partners, identify challenges and overcome them in implementation, and discuss updates as they occur. These working groups will be appointed during the co-creation process. Each action committee will be coordinated by the body ultimately responsible for implementing the commitment.

Please describe the independent Monitoring Body you have identified for this plan.

The Action Plan monitoring body will consist of a civil society representative and a government representative from the Steering Committee. The monitoring body will supervise the technical team of the municipality administration. The mayor, Mr. Mohamed Al-Saleh Al-Masoudi, will be the main point of contact. The technical department of the administration and civil society organizations will participate in collecting data, recording forms, and analyzing the results.

The monitoring body will meet once after the co-creation process is over, and each time there will be an assessment of a fulfilled commitment.

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

• Sayahi Salem, Natural Resources and Development Association, salem.sayahi@gmail.com
• Ayouni Ezziddine, Chairman of the Committee on Participatory Democracy and Open Governance, ezziddineayouni@yahoo.fr

What types of activities will you have in place to discuss progress on commitments with stakeholders?

The steering committee will have a person designated for monitoring and evaluation, who will be responsible for monitoring the activities of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). His/Her role includes:

• Develop an effective participation strategy during the implementation of the action plan.
• Joint development and implementation of monitoring activities.
• Support citizens to participate constructively in the OGP process.
• Maintain communication with government agencies and civil society responsible for the investment program for implementing specific commitments during the implementation period.
• Build partnerships between the media and the open government partnership in the municipality.
• Monitor and report on OGP.

How will you regularly check in on progress with implementing agencies?

The M

How will you share the results of your monitoring efforts with the public?

Implementation results will be shared with the public through:

• The municipality’s local OGP portal, which will publish content permanently every three months.
• Regular communication with traditional media as well as on social media.
• Publication of the minutes of the steering committee sessions regarding progress to the public.

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• Sayahi Salem, Director of Programs, Natural Resources and Development Association

Public Consultation on the initial version of the OGP Action Plan of Regeb Municipality