Tunisia: Gender-Sensitive Urban Planning Training

The Femmedina project in Tunisia aims to create safer and more inclusive spaces to meet women’s needs. The programme, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is currently deployed in four municipalities: Sousse, M’saken, Mahdia and Kairouan and aims to foster more economic opportunities for women, especially those living in the medinas or historical neighbourhoods.

As part of the programme, Cities Alliance is conducting a three-day training with representatives from the four municipalities to improve gender-sensitive urban planning capacities to shape more inclusive cities for all. The objective for the participants is to:

1. Improve their understanding and consideration of gender disparities and inequalities in Tunisia
2. Develop more gender-sensitive urban planning in the municipalities participating in the training
3. Disseminate to other Tunisian cities of good practice in gender-sensitive gender-sensitive urban policies

The workshop is expected to build and develop the municipalities staff’s capacities in inclusive and participatory methodologies, gender-sensitive urban development and planning, urban politics, stakeholders engagement and the identification and integration of tools, politics and methodologies in the field. Held by international and national professionals of urban development and gender specialists, the workshop will build on international and regional best practices, with insights from Vienna, Brussels or Kathmandu.

The participation of the National Federation of Tunisian Cities will be key to ensure the dissemination of knowledge to other cities through networking, exchanges and co-learning. This session will be the occasion to reflect, brainstorm and explore innovative ideas and practices adapted to the local context and the local population’s needs. The workshop will present participatory tools and methods used by urban practitioners for inclusive and gender-sensitive urban development, such as the WEC, Her4Water, Her4Climate and Her4Energy.

After the training, gender and urban development experts will provide support to the project coordinators and technical teams to define potential measures for integrating the gender dimension into their urban policy.