51吃瓜

An UNDEF project in Tunisia is working to increase young peoples鈥� participation in public and political life by building their capacity to take part in community affairs and local governance. Implemented by Tamkeen for Development, the project is training youth on participatory democracy, helping them to identify community projects with the potential to address local needs, and connecting them with local officials to advocate for youth priorities. To date, the project has trained over 600 young people on participatory democracy and local governance. The trainees have formed young citizens鈥� committees in six municipalities to identify community projects and draft proposals with the potential to address local needs. Youth from the respective municipalities were invited to vote on proposals to be funded through municipal budgets. Voting was available in-person or via a mobile app created by the project. UNDEF Senior Programme Officer Christian Lamarre visited the project in March 2022 to observe a 鈥榲oting-day鈥� in the city of Mahdia and engage with the head of the municipal council, counselors and young participants. Over 1,200 youth participated in the election, selecting two projects to be submitted to the municipal council for funding. The first project is called 鈥淪mart city鈥� and consists in an application that collects data on issues that relates to the city and communicates it to elected officials to try to solve them. The second project is focused on establishing a permanent municipal youth council. The mayor of Mahdia voiced her support for the project, 鈥淵outh participation in elections in Tunisia is quite low but in this project we see young people willing and involved in the future of their community.鈥�