La cooperazione transfrontaliera tra Sicilia e Tunisia: esperienze e prospettive

The article presents the main results of a field research conducted between 2012 and 2013 on the Italy-Tunisia border, aimed at investigating regional development options through policies and practices of crossborder cooperation. Starting from the specific context of the Italy - Tunisia border, the article presents the main aims, achievements, limits and prospects for cross-border cooperation across the channel of Sicily, also in light of the perceptions and expectations of local private and public stakeholders. The priorities to be addressed at different scales in order to improve the impact of the cooperation between Sicily and Tunisia include, in our opinion, the support to democratization in Tunisia and to the local civil society; to pay attention to the social as well as the economic aspects of cooperation; to ensure to local actors both political and financial support; to improve the cross-border cooperation instrument through a better targeting; the setting of a coherent multilevel political framework for addressing each of these issues effectively.