CASE STUDY from ASToN (2019-2022): Innovative Procurement, Bizerte (Tunisia)

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. An improvement in service quality would be measurable by cleaner neighbourhoods and a greater understanding of providers’ and citizen needs and satisfaction levels towards municipal waste disposal.

Back in January 2022 and as one of the steps taken to address this issue, the city of Bizerte wanted to source a partner to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of a waste management solution that could address the above issues. This was so they could learn about the stated solution’s functionality, feasibility and impact. In order to find a partner the city of Bizerte ran three Requests for Proposals to design and develop the MVP, but no successful partner emerged from the calls. Technology providers from the city and throughout Tunisia shared that the length of the contract was too short to be feasible and financially viable, and the bar for expertise and experience was too high for an innovative, untested solution.

The ASToN innovation coach worked side by side with the city over a period of two months February to April 2022 to under-stand how they were designing the tender and coach them through sourcing and sensemaking feedback from technology providers about the tender process.

• The coach and city worked closely to map out diverse ways through which providers have been sourced in the city in the past, and could be in the future.

• Throughout the process, the city was coached to strive for a partner who could support them to deploy a version of the solution they could use to test and learn from (i.e. about what worked and what didn’t), so that they could have the clarity they would need to source a longer-term partnership.

• These ongoing conversations with the city enabled them to spot an existing PPP between the city and a tech provider, who agreed to adapt an existing solution and test it within Bizerte’s waste management systems.

As of May 2022, the city has established a clear partnership with the technology provider who is supporting them to test and scale their solution across the municipality. The partnership has delivered an adapted version of the original solution, and deployed it for experimentation, piloting the solution with a single waste collection drivers and managers. Based on the learning of the pilot phase, the solution is being scaled at pace.

This iterative and experimental way of working has saved the city of Bizerte both time and money. The unique way that the partnership was sourced has enabled them to co-design the solution, test it in small batches of work, and adapt the scope of the work to be delivered as it was being delivered and as needed. This has also meant that the city was able to avoid having to pre-establish a long-term, rigid plan, committing them to what would have been an otherwise highly uncertain solution.