How to become an edible city: Carthage, Tunisia

On Wednesday 27th April, Katrin Bohn was invited by the Mayor of Carthage to the first meeting of a new investigation as part of the Tunisian city’s efforts to become an “edible city”.

Within the ‘transition process of the City of Carthage towards a resilient and sustainable urban system’, the Municipality of Carthage, represented by Mme la Maire Dr Hayet Bayoudh and project coordinator Karim Malki, had invited to a workshop about its recently launched systemic socio-economic study. Carthage Municipality is conducting this study in partnership with local research association La Recherche en Action (REACT) and with the support of the PwC-DTA-SOFRECOM group. The study began earlier this year and is funded by the Horizon2020 project EdiCitNet which also supports Katrin’s involvement.

It was the first time that preliminary results of the study were presented to invited guests from governmental and administrative departments of the municipality, local research organisations, food initiatives, the public as well organisations dealing with the special status of Carthage as world heritage city. The workshop focussed on the socio-economic challenges that the team of city representatives around REACT had finalised and contextualised during the last 9 months as part of the EdiCitNet project’s food and opportunity mapping guided by Katrin Bohn and Ian Bailey from the University of Brighton (UoB). Aim of the socio-economic study is to scientifically analyse Carthage’s socio-economic situation in order to identify concrete food system activities and acteurs as well as matching urban spaces that enable the implementation of “edible solutions” within the boundaries of Carthage.

The study’s outcomes will be fed back into EdiCitNet‘s ongoing transition pathway method led by BOKU Vienna and will inform the food-focused masterplanning report UoB has been tasked to develop for the Municipality of Carthage.

For more information on Carthage’s food system work see here.

Information about the research association REACT is here.

For more information on the development of the project process see here.

Image: A complex network of interdependencies between societal challenges (top), urban spaces (middle) and food system activities (bottom) has been identified during the food and opportunity mapping process. (source: REACT 2022)