Tunisia

Overall View

Tunisia has a relatively small territory and a population of some 10 millions. It is a middle-income country, ranking 91st out of 177 on the 2003 Human Development Index, and particularly advanced in the Sub-region in terms of health and living standards, levels of education, and women’s rights and position in the labour force. The remarkable decline in population growth from a 3 percent rate 10 years ago to around 1 percent, is a noteworthy contributing factor.

The country’s economy has been growing at a solid pace, reaching 5.7 in 2005, and is becoming more diversified, moving from heavy dependence on agriculture, oil and phosphates, to a greater focus on tourism and manufacturing, namely textiles. This is increasing its resilience to internal shocks (drought in particular) as well as external ones.

Unemployment remains the government’s most serious challenge. The unemployed, half of whom are under 25 years of age, still represent over 14% of the workforce. The incidence of poverty is low, however, mainly due to government’s commitment to fight the phenomenon, among others through developing socio-economic infrastructures in rural areas and poor urban areas and programmes for needy families.

Over the past 10 years the government’s economic priority has been to boost growth and job creation, through investment, productivity gains and export growth. Its main instrument has been a vast programme of “mise à niveau“; that is, an upgrading of the entire economy and infrastructure to meet the challenge of integration into the global economy. Economic modernization to increase competitiveness began in industry, and was gradually extended to the services and agriculture. A key element of this approach is its emphasis on the upgrading of the country’s workforce and labour market in general.

As it advances, the country’s “mise à niveau” displays a growing need for social dialogue and open relationships and real partnership among the socio-economic actors.

Activities

• Employment

  • Strengthening entrepreneurship culture, through cooperation with a network of major stakeholders in MSEs development: training trainers specialized in entrepreneurship and management training, using ILO training tools for micro- and small entrepreneurs
  • Developing a “Global Compact” programme
  • Monitoring impact assessment studies on MSEs
  • Promoting social dialogue in vocational training.

• Social protection

  • Reinforcing national Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) campaigns by ILO presence at workshops and conferences.

• Social dialogue

  • Promoting social dialogue in vocational training.