81255379 — Support to the Project ‘Job Partnership and Medium Enterprise Support’ in Tunisia

8 years after the revolution, Tunisia is still facing major social and economic challenges. At around 15 %, the official unemployment rate is similar to the rate before the Arab Spring. Human rights deficits consist in a lack of participation in economic life, an adequate income and in precarious working conditions. Business and investment dynamics in Tunisia remain weak. Although Tunisia's development strategy relies on the involvement of the private sector, the proportion of private investment is relatively low compared with public investment (61 %), especially when compared with countries such as Turkey (85 %), Morocco (78 %) or Egypt (75 %). Although the number of enterprises is increasing steadily through business start-ups, there are no noticeable employment effects. Overall, it can be attested that the employment-generating growth of enterprises in selected sectors is insufficient. Tunisia is therefore a partner country of the Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation (SI Jobs). The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH implements the special initiative on training and Job creation (SI Jobs) in selected African partner countries on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The goal of the SI Jobs is to promote job-creating growth in selected sectors and thus to improve social and economic prospects of the population in the partner countries. The project ‘Job partnerships and medium enterprise support in Tunisia’ implemented by GIZ on behalf of BMZ is part of the SI Jobs in Tunisia. The goal of the project is to increase the employment-generating growth of domestic and European companies in Tunisia. Identified priority sectors are the aviation and automotive industries. The project seeks support from a consulting firm for the implementation of specific activities over a duration of 2 years.