Helping Tunisian communes prepare gender-responsive annual investment plans

For Tunisian communes, annual investment plans (AIP) are an obligatory exercise in which they decide how to allocate the funds they have been granted by the central administration. Communes have a certain amount of leeway to fund projects that the community has presented. In 2022-2023, the Canadian-funded Program for Municipal Leadership Inclusive of Women in Tunisia (PMLI) project (nearly $6.9 million, 2018-2022) supported 5 partner communes in this exercise, to encourage them to prepare more inclusive AIP.

"I learned how technical studies are carried out for projects proposed by citizens, how to catalogue them, how to carry out a feasibility study and how to draw up schedules for estimating execution,” explains Radhouen Harbaoui, Secretary General of the commune of Sidi Bourouis. “In terms of communication, I learned how to convince citizens to take part in the planning process, and to inform them of the role of technical and financial diagnoses in identifying projects proposed by the population.”

The project not only helped the communes to decide how to allocate funds and develop AIPs, but also encouraged them to think about how to do it in a more gender-responsive way.

“We learned to take gender into account throughout the process, using more inclusive language and developing communication activities specifically targeting women,” says Harbaoui. “The positive effects of this PMLI support are being felt even at the level of public opinion and in neighbouring municipalities."