Context
Employment presents a tremendous challenge to Tunisia. This is because of the high unemployment in rural areas, which affects young people and women in particular. In spite of the economic potential of the rural regions in the areas of agriculture, crafts, tourism and textiles, there are considerable regional differences in the unemployment figures.
Against this backdrop, the project is aiming to offer solutions and targeted measures to young people in rural areas so that they can find stable and sustainable jobs. The project is focusing on cooperation with regional public, private and civil society actors.
Objective
Young people’s employment situation in rural areas is being improved by targeted technical training courses, skills development measures and job placement.
Approach
The project for Promoting Employment in Rural Regions in Tunisia (PERR) has been implemented since 2016 by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Vocational Training and Employment (Ministère de la Formation Professionnelle et de l’Emploi, MFPE). The project works with public, private and civil society actors in order to establish a dialogue on employment with different target groups in the regions. Here, the aim is to hold training courses oriented towards market needs and to support national strategies for vocational training, entrepreneurship and employment promotion. A further aim of the project is to prevent young people from leaving Tunisia. It is intended that young people who have already left the country will be encouraged to return because Tunisia offers them job prospects.
Results
The project has achieved the following results:
- 100 young people have found employment in the relevant partner companies in Monastir as a result of specific training courses for the textile industry.
- 40 entrepreneurs (from Tozeur and Kebili) have founded their own companies to make protective nets for date palms, thus reducing the degree to which the dates are infested with pests and consequently achieving much higher crop yields. As a result, 120 jobs have been created.
- A regional information system on employment has been set up. Employees from the Ministry of Vocational Training and Employment and the associated regional offices have attended training courses so that they can prepare, maintain and publish this data in a timely manner.