{"id":1773,"date":"2019-05-22T12:09:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T11:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/?p=1773"},"modified":"2019-05-22T12:09:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T11:09:15","slug":"decentralization-in-tunisia-empowering-towns-engaging-people-by-sarah-yerkes-and-marwan-muasher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/?p=1773","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDecentralization in Tunisia: Empowering Towns, Engaging People\u201d By Sarah Yerkes and Marwan Muasher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Carnegie Tunisia Monitor\u00a0<\/strong>organized an event to\u00a0release Sarah Yerkes\u2019 and Marwan Muasher\u2019s latest paper \u201cDecentralization in Tunisia: Empowering Towns, Engaging People,\u201d on Thursday 17 May 2018, in Washington DC.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Intissar Kherigi, programs director at Jasmine Foundation for research and Communication and a researcher at Sciences Po Paris, was hosted as a speaker at the event, where she shared JF\u2019s experience as a Think-and-Do tank in the field of decentralization and local governance, and in engaging and motivating youth and local communities to achieve participatory democracy in marginalized areas.<\/p>\n<p>The paper discusses in-depth how decentralization efforts have the potential to address many long-standing problems in the country, such as healthcare, education, poverty and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The following is a summary of the paper \u201c<strong>Decentralization in Tunisia: Empowering Towns, Engaging People,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0by Sarah Yerkes and Marwan Muasher:<\/p>\n<p><strong>SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia has taken several steps to devolve power from the highly centralized structures run by the Ben Ali family to the new, democratic central government and then from the executive to the parliament. Today, Tunisia faces the crucial task of shifting power from the national to the local level. This decentralization of power has the potential to address long-standing issues of dramatic regional disparity in the healthcare and education sectors, as well as in poverty and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Opportunities of Decentralization<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If done right, decentralization will empower local actors to make decisions regarding their municipalities and regions that lead to real changes for their constituents.<\/li>\n<li>This could introduce a new political class, which would be outside the country\u2019s traditionally dominant political parties and could provide more opportunities for women and youth to enter politics.<\/li>\n<li>Decentralization should also improve service delivery at the local level\u2014where poor performance since the 2011 revolution has resulted in mistrust between citizens and the state as well as low tax revenues.<\/li>\n<li>Decentralization requires strong political will\u2014from officials in the central government, who must willingly give up some of their own power and demonstrate their commitment to participatory governance at the local level; and from local officials who must build trust with their constituents, provide opportunities for citizen engagement, and prevent the re-creation of ineffective institutions at the local level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What Can Be Done?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Tunisian government<\/strong>\u00a0can manage public expectations by communicating clearly about the devolution of administrative and financial power.<\/li>\n<li>It can provide opportunities for participatory governance outside of those mandated by the law, such as the creation of citizen councils or regular policy preference surveys.<\/li>\n<li>The national government should also provide adequate financial and human resources, including ensuring the distribution of tax revenue to the local level.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Civil society<\/strong>\u00a0must continue to guard the democratic process. But it has an even more important role to play at the local level to encourage and ingrain a culture of participatory democracy by conducting an outreach campaign to the public regarding decentralization.<\/li>\n<li>It can help connect citizens with participatory governance mechanisms and devise mechanisms to capture citizen preferences and communicate those preferences to local officials.<\/li>\n<li><strong>International donors<\/strong>\u00a0should work to enhance the ability of local (and national) grassroots organizations and networks to encourage participatory governance.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, donors should continue to fund e-government efforts, including the digitization of local government forms and processes, to create a one-stop shop for citizens to access municipal services and communicate with municipal officials.<\/li>\n<li>Donors must also train and equip local officials based on best practices from around the globe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You can download the full paper\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Decentralization-in-Tunisia-Empowering-Towns-Engaging-People-by-Sarah-Yerkes-and-Marwan-Muasher.pdf\">Decentralization in Tunisia \u2013 Empowering Towns, Engaging People \u2013 by Sarah Yerkes and Marwan Muasher<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/\"><strong>Carnegie Endowment for International Peace<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carnegie Tunisia Monitor\u00a0organized an event to\u00a0release Sarah Yerkes\u2019 and Marwan Muasher\u2019s latest paper \u201cDecentralization in Tunisia: Empowering Towns, Engaging People,\u201d on Thursday 17 May 2018, in Washington DC. Mrs. Intissar Kherigi, programs director at Jasmine Foundation for research and Communication and a researcher at Sciences Po Paris, was hosted as a speaker at the event, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-governance","category-local-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1775,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions\/1775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasminefoundation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}