City Cleanliness

Focus area for ASToN

Bizerte’s chosen policy area is City Cleanliness

The municipality of Bizerte aims for continuous improvement in the quality of life of its citizens, including in how it conducts cleanliness activities and waste disposal. Recently, however, the extension of municipal boundaries – including into peri-urban and rural areas – has challenged the existing approach to waste management. Specifically, the overall size of the municipal boundary has quadrupled, which adds difficulty in the monitoring of garbage collection vehicles, the amount of “black spots” in service provision, and the satisfaction levels of citizens.

Central to these issues is the lack of internal communication between mem- bers of the Department for Cleanliness, as well as external communication with citizens. An improvement in service quality would be measurable by cleaner neighbourhoods and a greater understanding of citizen needs and satisfaction levels towards municipal waste disposal.

Findings: the starting point for addressing these problems

The following findings set out the starting point for Bizerte as they work to address waste management and city cleanliness. Based on research conducted over the course of Phase 1, they describe the interlinked strengths and challenges that need to be taken into account.

It is clear that the ASToN lead & mayor all have a shared belief in the role of digital solutions in the city, and a dedication to the improvement of the quality of life of its citizens. Additionally, the ASToN Local Group is motivated and has confidence in each of their abilities. However, while there are already many projects going on within the city, there is no one global vision or plan of action for the city to align with. A shared strategy can help the city start small and build towards the big issues they wish to address, and an associated plan of action can be used to solicit important funding from elsewhere.

While Bizerte has identified Clean City Waste as their theme, there was a clear and demonstrated interest in exploring data for digital transformation, within the chosen policy area and beyond. City authorities have a strong understanding of the value of data and have successful experience using GIS, for example.

At the national level, Tunisia is strongly oriented towards digital solutions, with cheap networks and fast data speeds. The municipality also has a good level of computer equipment. However, though digital tools are used these are not always reliable, and members of the local authority have said that internal systems must be improved. Areas of interest could be an improvement in electronic document management, electronic archiving, electronic correspondence, and citizen complaint management.

The new Tunisian constitution encourages far greater levels of citizen participation in government activities. However, communicating with citizens and keeping up with technological developments are still challenges for the city authority. There also remains an issue of access to digital technology as it requires citizens to pay for data.

Across Tunisia, there is a new regulatory framework and incentives to partner with startups from the national level. However, there are not many startups operating in Bizerte, meaning it may be hard for the local authority to find local implementing partners.

Bizerte struggles with projects that are complex and multi-stakeholder in format, and have often not been able to successfully present projects to potential funders.

Next steps

Bizerte does not currently have a digital transformation plan, but the city authority hopes that the framework of the ASToN project will help to generate one.

Local authority departments involved in the project

Stakeholders involved in the ASToN Local Group

Involvement in the ASToN network